170 



THE CANADIAN HUKIlCLLTURIST. 



they pass the pupa stage, emerging 

 again in the fly form to repeat their 

 work of destruction. 



In the summer of 1840, the Mas- 

 sachusetts Horticultural Society offered 

 a premium of one hundred dollars for 

 the most successful mode of destroying 

 these slugs. Whale oil soap, in the 

 proportion of two pounds of soap to 

 fifteen gallons of water, sprinkled over 

 the rose trees so as to wet the upper 

 surface of the leaves as often as the 

 slugs make their appearance, will be 

 found effectual. The writer, however, 

 prefers to use white hellebore, for the 

 reason that a supply of this must needs 

 be at hand to combat the Gooseberry 

 Sawfly, and is equally destructive to 

 this one when applied in the same 

 manner. In using the hellebore it 

 will be found advantageous to dissolve 

 a little alum in the water, wliich will 

 have the effect of making the hellebore 

 adhere to the leaves. It is very im- 

 portant that the rose-grower be on the 

 watch for this insect, and apply the 

 hellebore or the whale-oil soap as soon 

 as the slugs appear, for they work with 

 great rapidity. Mr. Harris says that 

 a second brood makes its appearance in 

 August. We have not noticed this to 

 be the case here, and we think that if 

 the brood that works in the latter part 

 of June and the beginning of July is 

 thoroughly treated in the manner above 

 mentioned, there will be nothing to fear 

 from the August brood. 



The Rose Leaf Hopper is a most pro- 

 voking little pest, as agile as a flea, and 

 as numerous as ever was the flea in 

 Tiberias, where it is said that the king 



of the fleas holds his court. And a 

 cunning little fellow is he too, for when 

 he sees you approaching from one direc- 

 tion he will hastily dodge off* in the 

 opposite, and if you press him too close 

 he will take to himself wings and fly. 

 Entomologists call this insect Tettigonia 

 rosce. When it first appears it has no 

 wings, is a small white creature, to be 

 found on the underside of the rose 

 leaves, with its proboscis thrust into 

 the leaf, from which it is sucking the 

 juice or sap. As they grow they cast 

 their skins, which may be found adher- 

 ing to the underside of the leaf, until 

 arriving at maturity they are also sup- 

 plied with wings. In the autumn they 

 secrete tliemselves among fallen leaves 

 or other rubbish, pass the winter in a 

 dormant state, appear again the follow- 

 ing summer, lay their eggs and perish. 

 If they would only die before they laid 

 their eggs ; but then, they won't. 



The remedies that have been found 

 most eflicacious are whale-oil soap, as 

 recommended for the rose-slug, and 

 tobacco-water. But in order that these 

 may destroy the leaf hoppers, they 

 should be applied when the insects are 

 young. The gardener should be on the 

 watch for them about the middle of 

 June, this season they were abundant 

 as early as the tenth of June. If 

 allowed to grow they become at each 

 successive moult more tough skinned, 

 and less sensitive to the effects of the 

 tobacco or the whale-oil soap. Poisons 

 do not reach them, inasmuch as they 

 do not feed on the substance of the leaf, 

 but subsist by sucking out the juices, 

 and in this way causing the leaf to turn 



