ON LAYING OUT. 25 



flowers. They will not walk upon straw or ashes strewed thickly 

 round any plant : they equally dislike a fence of sticks placed 

 round a plot, with bits of white paper or card fastened to each 

 stick ; or a string carried round the sticks a foot or two high. 

 If they cannot creep under a slight fence, they never attempt to 

 leap over it. If a stick is run into the ground close to a plant, 

 and other sticks are slanted from the ground towards the center, 

 the plant will remain untouched, be the frost of ever so long 

 duration. 



Snails are disagreeable intruders, but the following method is 

 an exterminating war of short duration : 



Throw cabbage leaves upon your borders over night ; in the 

 morning, early, you will find them covered underneath with 

 snails, which have taken refuge there. Thus they are easily 

 taken and destroyed. 



Earwigs are taken in great numbers by hanging gallipots, 

 tubes, or 'my such receptacle, upon low sticks in the borders over 

 night. In these they shelter themselves, and are consequently 

 victimized in the morning. The gallipots, broken bottles, &c., 

 should be placed upon the stick like a man's hat, that the vermin 

 may ascend into them. 



Ants are very great enemies to flowers ; but I know no method 

 of attacking them, except in their own strongholds, which I have 

 always done with cruel intrepidity and success. My only plan 

 was to lay open the little ant-hill, and pour boiling water upon 

 the busy insects, which destroyed at once the commonwealth, 

 and the eggs deposited within the mound. In some places ants 

 are extremely large and abundant, and they quickly destroy the 

 beauty of a flower by attacking its root and heart.* 



* The Emperor Pagonatus, who wrote a treatise upon agriculture, assure* 

 us, that to clear a garden of ants, we should burn empty snail shells with 

 storax wood, and throw the ashes upon the ant-hills, which obliges them to 

 remove. I never tried this method. 

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