96 How to Make the Garden Pay. 



corners, or by similar devices. A ring of buckwheat or beans 

 sown around the vines when the latter are planted, is another 

 expedient sometimes employed for the purpose of hiding the 

 vines. The period of danger is only while the plants are young, 

 especially in seed-leaf, and. our first aim should be to push the 

 plants by rich stimulating food, liquid manuring, if needed, past 

 the stage when they are liable to ruinous attacks. 



The young plants are so tender and succulent, and there is 

 so little of them, that the first visit of a number of striped beetles 

 usually means little less than destruction to the victims. Treat- 

 ment must positively be begun in advance of the insects' first 

 appearance. 



The usual method, suited especially for larger plantations, 

 but having considerable merit for the home garden also, consists 

 in keeping the plants from the day they first begin to break 

 ground until they are beyond the period of danger, well covered 

 with plaster or bone dust The coating must be renewed 

 promptly whenever washed off by rains or heavy dews. Air- 

 slacked lime is sometimes used, but it is always risky, on account 

 of its still caustic nature. In all cases where plaster is made to 

 serve as insect repeller, I would prefer to have it flavored with 

 carbolic acid, by mixing a pint of the crude article with a bushel 

 of plaster. The acid can do no possible harm, and it always 

 adds to the effectiveness of plaster or air-slacked lime. 



Another equally meritorious remedy is the following : Mix 

 a tablespoonful of kerosene in two quarts of plaster, sifted wood 

 ashes, or bone flour, rubbing it with the hands until the oil is 

 well distributed, then sprinkle this over the vines, and repeat as 

 often as required. It is also worth while to try this trick of 

 repelling the marauders by placing little heaps of ashes, saturated 

 with kerosene, turpentine, or carbolic acid, or pieces of corn-cobs, 

 soaked in coal tar, among the vines to be protected. Should the 

 insects find the vines in spite of all precautions, we yet have a 

 remedy to apply, and this consists in spraying the vines with a 

 weak solution of Paris green at the rate of 1 5 gallons of water 

 to one ounce of poison. Apply in a fine spray, so that the 

 poisonous liquid will reach the upper and lower surfaces of every 

 leaf, and the stems also. If a spraying apparatus is not at hand, 

 a small quantity of poison may be mixed with the plaster or bone 

 dust, and applied dry. 



CUT WORMS (Agrotis). A large number of species of cut 

 worms make themselves highly obnoxious to the gardener by 

 the impudence with which they attack and cut down almost 

 every kind of newly-set plants. They are mostly clumsy and 

 greasy-looking caterpillars of some dull shade of color (grayish, 

 brown, greenish), remain in their hiding places on bright days, 

 and come to the surface at night or in cloudy weather, to seek 



