Insects and Other Foes. 103 



of various plants. The name " wire- worm" is often wrongfully 

 applied to the generally larger and darker-colored centipede or 

 thousand-legged worm. Trapping or baiting is about the only 

 method of fighting them which promises any success whatever. 

 Sliced potatoes or other vegetables are buried beneath the ground 

 here and there over the area to be freed from the pest, and each 

 place marked with a stick, for convenience of examination. Look 

 these baits over carefully every morning, and gather and destroy 

 the worms. 



OTHER FOES. Moles, although living entirely on worms and 

 insects, and never destroying crops directly by eating, often, par- 

 ticularly in sandy and mucky soils, become a source of much 

 annoyance to the gardener by tunneling under the plant beds, 

 lifting out, and killing many young plants, indirectly by expo- 

 sure and drying up. Good traps may now be had at very reason- 

 able prices of almost every hardware dealer. When persistently 

 kept set according to directions which accompany each of these 

 traps, they will soon reduce the numbers of the burrowing pests. 



RATS, MICE, ETC. When troubling hot-beds, hot-houses, etc., 

 are also easily enough trapped or poisoned. Cheese crumbs are 

 a favorite bait for them ; but there is hardly anything that will 

 more surely entice the rodents than Sunflower seed. If a steel 

 trap is used to catch rats, a large piece of very thin muslin should 

 be covered over the trap when set, strewn with cheese crumbs, 

 sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc., and perseveringly kept set. 

 This will clear the premises of rats after awhile. Woodchucks 

 are frequently very troublesome to beans, and occasionally 

 to squash and pumpkin vines, corn, etc. One of the surest 

 ways of getting rid of them, is to find the burrows, insert a one- 

 quarter or one-half pound charge of dynamite with a long fuse, 

 stop up every opening, then fire the end of the fuse outside, and 

 leave the animal to its fate. A mixture of tar, sulphur and salt- 

 petre, burned inside the burrow, with all the openings closed, will 

 also hardly ever fail to produce the desired effect. 



BIRDS are sometimes troublesome in the strawberry patch. 

 Try to scare them away rather than shoot them, unless there is 

 no other alternative. Exploding small fire crackers sometimes 

 has good effect. It is said that birds eat berries only because 

 they get dreadfully thirsty ; and that a pan kept filled with fresh 

 water where birds can have easy access to it, will save the berries 

 from this source of danger. 



