126 THE BLOSSOM CIRCLE OF THE YEAR 



water, a strong spraying from the hose, often will keep the aphids 

 controlled, and potassium sulphide and arsenate of lead will do 

 the rest applied as needed in season. 



The remedies used in other sections will give relief in most 

 cases of insects and fungous pests, but the most dreaded and the 

 most insidious of our Summer insect enemies is that one, par- 

 ticularly ubiquitous in the regions of the citrus plants, the white 

 fly. Lime-sulphur solution applied in the Winter months is an 

 excellent preventive of disease, but when torrential rains of July 

 and August are daily occurrences, followed by blistering heat 

 in the afternoon and cool winds at night, these adjuncts to our 

 gardens appear like the far-famed locust plagues of Palestine. 

 If the season is equable and not out of the ordinary they are 

 never seen. 



Without warning they appear in clouds on the Amoor River 

 Privet hedges and before one knows it they are all over the world. 

 Gnats, gnats, gnats! All the beautiful broad-leaved evergreens 

 will be covered with white spots and after a day or two the leaves 

 will fall to the ground. Absolutely all the vitality of the leaf 

 has gone to supply the needs of the newly hatched larvae pro- 

 duced by the whitish spots which prove to be eggs. The stems 

 and bark of the shrubs will also be infected and will appear as 

 if covered with a scale, much in appearance like the San 

 Jose scale. They are an abomination and a desolation. How 

 we hate them! How we dread them! How we hope they will 

 not show themselves this Summer! 



There are several remedies: Lime-sulphur used in the pro- 

 portion of one part to 25 gallons of water, which is very strong 

 and liable to injure the plants — but, if you do not use it they are 

 gone anyway, so what is the difference ? For small places whale 

 oil soap, \y2 ounces to a gallon of water, is very good. Several 

 specific remedies selling for 75 cents a gallon and used Xyi gallons 

 to 100 gallons of water are by far the cheapest and most reliable 

 destroyers. These sprays will destroy them root and branch — 

 that is, wings and feet — and nothing else will. 



Think what work it entails to go over whole Orange groves, 

 to spray thousands of feet of hedges, to spray hundreds of yards 



