DESTRUCnON OP VERMIN. 211 



ixoras, clerodendrons, and other plants blooming in bunches 

 will not be able to flower at all, unless the bugs be eradicated 

 before they have time to do mischief. Another mode of 

 getting rid of these creatures is to wash all the infested parts 

 with yellow soap-suds, and a new shaving-brush has always 

 appeared to us to be the best adapted for the purpose. The 

 bristles are just stiff enough to drive them out, and they 

 cannot stand soap if they are disturbed j but even syringing 

 will scarcely move them when they have once taken full pos- 

 session of all the corners and interstices of a plant. Care must 

 be taken that the suds are not too strong nor too hot, but 

 they are the more effectual for being a little warm. We need 

 hardly say that the plants must be handled very carefully, for 

 it is easy to bruise and damage the young shoots and bloom- 

 buds with rough handling, and in this respect it is impossible 

 to be too tender. The hand must support the leaves and 

 young shoots, which should He in it, or lean against it, while 

 the other hand plies the brush. By this means the stalks of 

 the leaves are not bent or broken. Some lukewarm water 

 should be handy at the time to clean away the soap, or, which 

 is better, to syringe the plant with after it is cleared of the 

 bug. The scale infests hard-wooded plants, generally, more 

 than anything succulent in its nature, and this scale has to be 

 removed with some gentle violence, for it adheres generally 

 pretty close, and all the syringing the plant could have would 

 not stir it. A stiff Inrush and warm soap-suds may ; but it 

 will frec[uently be found necessary to scrajDC it off ; some gar- 

 deners, as a preventive to this, rmV up a wash of clay, thick 

 enough to dry on a thin coating, and it has been fouud that 

 the scale cannot settle or breed on this ; but it has its disad- 

 vantages. In the first place, it does not help the appearance 

 of the plant ; in the next, it is questionable whether the 

 ordinary organs of the plant can work so freely, when there is 

 a close coating of any kind over the surface ; but when a plant 

 has had the scale badly, it may not be amiss to give it a wash 

 of this sort to remain on a few days, while there is a chance 

 of any of the young brood hanging about, and then to syringe 

 it off by degrees, for it will be some time before it is all 

 washed off. Ants are very awkward things in a house ; for 

 they will, if in any quantity, often make their colony in a pot, 

 which they work into a thousand hollow ways all among the 

 roots, and the plant is almost destroyed before the mischief is 



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