178 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
nately we cannot make use of it in connection with 
the aphis-eaters, as they must perish if deprived of 
their usual food. So that, after all, the wholesale 
destruction of all insect life, though slightly irrational 
in that it destroys a few friends among innumerable 
foes, will do more good than harm to the Roses ; and 
I am afraid it is better that a few friends should 
perish than that any enemies should be allowed to 
remain. 
To take another analogy from vermin of the farm, 
there is one rat, most difficult to catch of all, for 
whose tail the farmer will willingly pay an extra 
price, and that is the last one. Naturally, perhaps, 
he is often left, and before long the nuisance is as 
bad as ever. As aphides are, during the summer, 
practically sexless in the matter of breeding, it is 
even more important in their case to get the last one 
on each shoot, and if finger and thumb or any such 
means are employed for their destruction the search 
should be thorough, and the same shoot should again 
be examined the next day. 
Funcoip Prsts.—Garden roses are subject to an 
unusual number of parasitical fungi, between thirty 
and forty having been enumerated. Happily two 
only are sufficiently prevalent among healthily 
grown plants to be worthy of description and 
warning, and these are mildew and orange fungus. 
Mildew.—This is apestindeed. Sometimes it ap- 
pears in force all of a sudden in several places at 
once and spreads like a fire: the hoary leprous 
growth covers the leaves, checks the transpiration 
or breathing, and lowers more and more, as it 
increases, the vitality of the plants and the con- 
sequent spread of the roots. I gather from Mr. 
