70 MELON CULTURE 



during which time if nothing- is done to prevent it, 

 the plants are usually entirely destroyed. 



Remedies, — Many remedies have been recom- 

 mended and tried with more or less success, none, 

 however, working entirely satisfactorily, except 

 possibly the fencing-out method. In some cases a 

 free use of tobacco dust placed around the stems as 

 soon as the beetles make their appearance acts as a 

 deterrent. Some have advocated soaking corn cobs 

 in kerosene oil and then placing them near the 

 plants, but others say that they have made a pen 

 around the hill with oil-soaked cobs and the beetles 

 would eat the plants and then crawl under the cobs 

 for protection from the sun. Air-slaked lime is 

 sometimes dusted over the plants ; this simply 

 serves to drive the beetles to other fields or other 

 portions of the same field. Road dust, land plaster, 

 or ashes serve the same purpose. Applications of 

 london purple, paris green or lead arsenate mixed 

 with bordeaux mixture are used with some degree 

 of success, but applications should be frequent, as 

 new growth is constantly pushing out. and this must 

 be kept covered. The bordeaux mixture is used in 

 this case for the purpose of making the arsenicals 

 stick to the plant, but its greatest use is as a fungi- 

 cide in protecting the plant from its numerous dis- 

 eases. 



Various kinds of coverings for the plants have 

 been used with more or less success. One of these 

 which has given satisfaction was invented by an 

 Indiana grower, who now uses it to the exclusion of 

 everything else. This he calls a " dome screen." 

 (See Fig. 15.) It is made of common wire screen 

 pressed into a dome shape, about six or seven inches 



