The Pests of Garden Plants 



usually crowded with Wireworms, and these, as a matter of course, 

 prey upon whatever crop is put upon the land when first it is broken 

 up. Soot, lime, salt, nitrate of soda, and sulphuric acid are cheap 

 and useful manures suitable to many soils and circumstances, and 

 directly destructive to Wireworm. 



The most convenient food is Potatoes ; the Wireworms seek these 

 out instantly upon their being committed to the soil, and thus they 

 serve admirably as traps. Chat Potatoes that have not been greened 

 might often be used advantageously to clear a piece of land of Wire- 

 worm. 



Woodlice are terrible destroyers, but are easily caught, and may 

 be completely eradicated by perseverance. When a frame or pit is 

 infested, they may be destroyed wholesale by pouring boiling water 

 down next the brickwork or the woodwork in the middle of the day. 

 If this procedure does not make a clearance, recourse must be had 

 to trapping. In common with Earwigs, they love dryness, darkness, 

 and a snug retreat ; but while a mere home suffices for Earwigs, a 

 home with food is demanded by Woodlice. Take a thumb pot, 

 quite dry and clean. In it place a fresh-cut slice of Potato or Apple, 

 fill up with dry moss, and turn the whole thing over on a bed in a 

 frame or pit. Thus you have devised a Woodlouse trap, and next 

 morning you may knock the vermin out of it into a vessel full of hot 

 water, or adopt any other mode of killing that may be convenient. 

 Fifty traps may be prepared in a hundred minutes ; and those who 

 are determined to get rid of Woodlice may soon make an end of 

 them. Another remedy is Steiner's Vermin (Phosphorus) Paste, mixed 

 with barley meal in the proportions of three parts of meal to one of 

 the paste. A little of the mixture spread on pieces of cardboard and 

 laid at short intervals among the plants to be protected will be freely 

 eaten as soon as darkness sets in. An examination of the beds on 

 the following morning will afford ample evidence of the success of 

 this mixture. 



Rats and Mice. Traps are good while they are new, and 

 almost any reasonably good contrivance will answer for a time, but 

 will fail at last, or at least for a season. To keep down Rats and 

 Mice effectually there must be invented a succession of new modes 

 of action, for these creatures Rats especially are so clever that 

 they soon see through our devices, which then fail of effect. Gene- 

 rally speaking, two rules may be prescribed. In the first place, we 



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