CHAPTER XVIII. 



INSECTS AND OTHER FOES. 



THEIR WAYS OF DOING MISCHIEF AND HOW TO KEEP THEM IN CHECK. 

 " Eternal Vigilance the Price. 1 ' 



F all the obstacles to the successful production of 

 choice garden vegetables, none has ever shown itself 

 in a more serious aspect than the multiplication 

 of injurious insects. The problem how to get rid 

 of them often sorely puzzles the ingenuity of even 

 the best gardener. Frequently our plants come 

 up nicely, and we are pleased with their apparent 

 health and thrift, and perhaps pride ourselves on our skill ; only 

 to find, at our very next visit to the garden, soon after, that the 

 whole plantation is badly damaged, if not already ruined beyond 

 any chance of recovery, by an unexpected attack of insect foes. 

 Occasionally we have to admit our utter defeat. 



The question how to deal with insects is a serious problem. 

 The best of talent has been, and still is, engaged in the attempt 

 to find a satisfactory solution. Columns upon columns on the 

 subject have of late been published by the agricultural press. 

 Lectures upon lectures on insect lore have been delivered by 

 specialists, and bulletin upon bulletin touching upon this matter 

 are issued by the Experiment Stations, and sent out by the 

 thousand, and yet I am asked more questions on " insects and 

 what to do for them," than on any other subject. So I will 

 endeavor to give pretty plain and full instructions. 



As a general rule it may be stated that the most satisfactory, 

 and often the only effective measures are those of a preventive 

 character or tendency. The aim should be to keep our crops 

 entirely out of reach or observation by their insect foes, and 

 success in this can more generally and more easily be achieved 

 by a judicious system of rotation ("wide" rotation, as I am 

 tempted to call it), than by the application of drugs, etc. The 

 gardener knows, or should know, the exact location of the 

 breeding places of the various bugs and beetles. Where their 

 food plants had been grown the year before, right there we may 

 confidently expect to see the foes reappear this season. In last 

 year's cabbage and radish patches the flea beetle will be 

 found plentiful this year ; and where we had cucumber and squash 

 vines then, we will find the yellow-striped squash beetle, the black 



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