270 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



Fumigation with hydrocyanic acid gas as usually practiced for 

 the control of the red spider is an efficient remedy. (Bui. 22 New 

 Cir. U. S. D. A., D. E.) 



PESTS OF DOORYARD PLANTS. 



The house-wife's flower-bed, rose bushes, sweet peas and other 

 plants which she may attempt to grow near the house may frequently 

 suffer from insect attack. Plant-lice, leaf-hoppers, the so-called "red 

 spider," and the small, green slugs or "worms," all often occur on 

 roses at the same time. Sweet peas are often ruined by the red 

 spider; asters and the buds of dahlias and similar plants are often 

 "blighted" by the punctures of the little tarnished plant-bug; and the 

 blossoms of asters, chrysanthemums and the like sometimes swarm 

 with blister-beetles. 



Leaf-hoppers are the small, whitish, active little creatures that 

 often swarm on the under sides of the leaves of roses, leaping into the 

 air upon the slightest disturbance of the bush. They suck their food 

 from the leaves like plant-lice. The green slugs eat the leaves and 

 finally transform into small, black sawflies. The tarnished plant- 

 bug is another sucking insect, which abounds almost everywhere that 

 plants of any kind grow. The blister-beetles are quite large, slender, 

 blackish beetles which eat blossoms and soon render them unsightly. 



The housewife should be equipped with one of the smaller spray- 

 ers, like a hand-atomizer or a bucket-pump. With one of these ma- 

 chines loaded with a whale-oil soap solution, kerosene emulsion or 

 tobacco decoction, the plant-lice, leaf-hoppers and "red spiders" can 

 be easily controlled by several applications at intervals of a week or so. 

 If good water pressure is available, these insects can usually -be kept 

 in check with a forceful water-spray frequently applied. As the slugs 

 are chewing insects, they can be easily fed a dose of poison by either 

 spraying on a Paris green mixture (one pound in 150 gallons of 

 water) or by dusting on hellebore. No method has yet been devised 

 for preventing the tarnished plant-bug from blighting the buds of 

 flowering plants. This insect breeds in such large numbers in near- 

 by grass-lands that fresh recruits are always at hand. The simplest 

 and surest method of stopping the depredations of blister-beetles is 

 either to hand-pick or knock them off into pans of kerosene. (New 

 Series I No. 2 Cornell Reading Course for Farmers' Wives.) 



The Rose Scale. This is a snow-white scale about one-tenth of 

 an inch in diameter, somewhat irregular in outline; on the whole, 

 broadly oval in contour. On a badly infested twig there will be seen, 

 besides these broad scales, many of lesser size not quite so white, 

 more oval in form, and with the yellowish band or point projecting 

 beyond the scale line. We also find a series of much narrower scales, 

 ridged in the center, and these cover the male, all the broad scales 

 being females in every instance. This species attacks rose, blackberry 

 and raspberry, the rose being the most common host. It has a dis- 

 tinct preference for plants grown in the shade, and particularly 

 where, 'besides being shady, the ground is also damp. 



Hibernation may be in any stage from the egg to the gravid 

 female, all stages being found during the winter months. By the 



