158 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE cha.p. 



off his head when he dies. This extremely sensible 

 system might, with the omission of the last clause, be 

 applied with great advantage by farmers and other 

 residents in the country to ratcatchers and other 

 professional destroyers of vermin. Unfortunately 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. 



Fungoid Pests. — 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. 



Mildeiv, — This is a pest indeed. 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 



