94 A Little Maryland Garden 
one half of my gay green plants were ragged 
and brown, and had to be cut back. 
After a time one learns to apportion the 
insects to their favourite plants; to the rose, 
the green fly; to the aster, its beetle; to 
dahlias and marigolds, the borer; and to del- 
phiniums, the lowly slug; and the disgusting 
red aphis (than which I know nothing more 
loathsome) to cluster thick on artichokes and 
golden glow. But when one finds a strange 
creature shaped like a rose twig, only known 
for an insect because he stretched a leg when 
he was brushed aside, one is at a loss to 
know just where his powers of evil will be 
exercised. 
The orange lily bed is a pasture for snails, 
and here I let them enjoy themselves, for 
I never found that they harmed the lilies, 
and it keeps them out of mischief. And 
though slugs are partial to iris roots as a 
home, I never found the iris suffered from 
being turned into a slug refuge. 
I once offered small boys five cents apiece 
for toads, as every gardener knows that 
