216 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



under the top of the "wall on our otsti side, and it was an 

 effectual bar to their depredations. This, however, would not 

 stop them on the ground, as slugs would burrow under it, and 

 defy it altogether. It will be seen from this, that unless you 

 can stop their importation from your neighbour's grounds, 

 your work will be endless, and almost fruitless. Your whole 

 mind, therefore, must be set to stop their ingress from parts 

 where you have no control, and then exterminate those already 

 on the premises, by the means we have mentioned. 



Earwigs have baffled the exertions of many gardeners ; but 

 it has been chiefly because they were careless until the insects 

 began to be numerous : as a proof of this, we have known 

 dahlia growers to plant out in jMay, to begin hunting for 

 earwigs as soon as the blooms were attacked in July and 

 August, ^ow, nothing could be more thoughtless than this, 

 although some of the pretended teachers of the cultivation of 

 that flower actually tell us, that as they advance towards 

 flowering, we must begin to stop the earwigs. It is a thousand 

 to one if they can be got rid of at all, if neglected till that 

 season. Earwigs should be always trapped and killed. Eor 

 this purpose, hollow bean-stalks, properly dried, and cut into 

 six or eight-inch lengths, should be placed thickly about the 

 borders, close to or in any plants that may be there ; these 

 should be thrown into a pail or pan full of strong salt and 

 water every day, so long as one is to be found in the entire 

 round of the garden. When the dahlias are planted out, or 

 any other plant that they attack, one of these traps should be 

 placed to each ; and, as the insect prefers a snug place above 

 ground to burrowing under ground, and especially in wet 

 weather, they will be almost exterminated during the spring 

 months. The old gardeners used to put lobster-claws on the 

 top of small sticks, and the younger ones put small flower- 

 pots, with some moss in the bottom : all these things are good 

 if examined daily, and all that are caught are killed ; but if 

 they are merely put there, and not examined, they form the 

 very harbouring material which enables the insect to mul- 

 tiply. Better leave even dahlias to their fate, than put pots 

 of moss on their sticks, and not daily examine them, and kill 

 all that are caught. We have, even in the dahlia ground, put 

 the pots we have taken them out of, on the top of the short 

 sticks from the pots close to the plant ; and, although we have 

 not caught one in half a dozen pots, we always felt that we 



