170 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
destroy aphides at least: for they are easily killed, 
and are only formidable by their astonishing powers 
of increase. For pot plants under glass smoking 
with tobacco is the usual remedy, but the too much 
despised finger and thumb should check the pest at 
its first appearance. 
Occasionally there is a visitation of winged swarms 
late in the season in such abundance as to be 
formidable from sheer multitude. Such an invasion 
occurred in Suffolk one autumn some years ago; it 
was like a miniature plague of locusts, for they 
literally covered the whole of the plants on which 
they alighted till it seemed as if there was not room 
for one more. With me they alighted principally 
on green peas, but at Colchester a good many Roses 
were injured and even killed outright. Syringing on 
a large scale with a powerful garden engine is the 
remedy in such a case. 
It is pretty well known that ants frequent the 
shoots which are attacked by aphides for the purpose 
of feeding on the sweet juice which they secrete, 
called honey-dew. Entomologists tell us that the 
ants treat the aphides as their milch cows, and even 
convey them about to fresh shoots; and I once 
found a singular instance of this. Some poor briar 
cuttings had been planted in an odd corner of my 
garden, on the chance of their doing well enough to 
be worth budding. They did not turn out well 
enough and in consequence were neglected, but I 
noticed in the summer a few aphides on the shoots 
and that there were ants in the ground. The stocks 
were dug up to be thrown away in mid-winter, and 
I then found the aphides quite underground feeding 
on the roots, and attended by ants. It seems a fair 
