VARIOUS GARDEN PESTS 257 



SLUGS, SNAILS AND SOWBUGS. 



Garden snails are exceedingly difficult to destroy. Sprinkling 

 powdered lime on the infested ground around the plants destroys 

 many of them. Some people protect choice plants by hand picking of 

 snails after dark, using a lantern to discover them. The best way of 

 all, however, to reduce the bad effects of snails is to keep the surface 

 of the ground cultivated as much as possible during the rainy season. 

 This gives the surface an opportunity to become dry, although the 

 ground beneath will be moist, and snails cannot make any headway 

 upon a dry, pulverized surface. 



Some resort to trapping; small pieces of board placed upon the 

 ground surface under which the snails collect in considerable numbers, 

 and they can be crushed on these boards, or fed to chickens or other- 

 wise disposed of. Some success is occasionally reported with poison- 

 ing using cabbage or lettuce leaves dipped in water in which Paris 

 green is thoroughly stirred, one ounce to five gallons, dipping before 

 the poison has a chance to settle to the bottom, and placing these 

 poisoned leaves on the ground near the plants. 



When the rains are frequent and the ground kept constantly moist 

 upon the surface, it is almost impossible to check them. A very good 

 way is to have a brood of young chickens or young ducks, with a hen 

 in a coop, and allow them to run in the garden. Ducks are the best 

 hunters for slugs that we know of. 



GOPHERS AND MOLES. 



These subterranean excavators must be mastered. Suggestions for 

 their exclusion from precious areas are given on pages 151 and 190, but 

 extermination must be always in mind. Gophers eat plants; moles eat 

 ground grubs, worms, etc., but in getting them they wreck a garden 

 bed; therefore both must be killed. 



Moles. If you find large mounds of dirt thrown out freely, but 

 never see an open hole or a prospecting varmint, you may conclude 

 that you have to deal with moles and not gophers. The best thing 

 then is to get a mole trap, which is placed near where the mole is 

 working in such a way that his pushing out dirt sets off the trap, 

 which, by means of a strong spring, shoots sharp spikes through the 

 dirt into the mole below. It takes a little practice to place the trap 

 just right, but it works well when you learn this. We have driven 

 away moles by using a squirrel smoker, which forces into the runway 

 smoke from damp straw and sulphur burning in the machine. We 

 have killed them by watching for the movement of the earth as they 

 are extending their surface burrows and striking in hard with a hatchet. 

 If the ground is soft, they can be thrown out with a spading fork and 

 killed on the surf-ace. 



