INSECT REMEDIES 301 



made by stirring a tablespoonful of the oil to a quart of pulverized 

 gypsum, or air-slacked lime, or even fine road dust. Scatter it on 

 and around the plant. 



Plants may also be often rendered unattractive to insects by 

 free sprinkling with tar water. Take a barrel with a few gallons 

 of gas tar in it, pour water on the tar, and have it always ready 

 when needed. When the insects appear give them a liberal dose 

 of the tar water from a garden sprinkler or otherwise; when the 

 rain washes it off the leaves, or the pests return, repeat the dose. 



There are other biting and boring insects which destroy plants 

 by their injuries to the roots. Wireworms are a conspicuous group 

 of these destroyers. All underground pests are naturally difficult 

 of treatment and often in field practice they cannot be economically 

 destroyed or discouraged. In garden practice, however, the use of 

 soot or nitrate of soda, in very small quantities, or of tobacco dust, 

 the extract of which is carried down by water to the discomfiture 

 of the pest, is often effective and profitable. 



Another group of biting pests though not strictly insects are 

 slugs and snails. They can be poisoned by the use of poisoned 

 leaves lead on the ground, or they can be trapped either with leaves 

 or pieces of board or little piles of wheat bran. Early in the morn- 

 ing the slugs will be found in large numbers under the leaves or 

 boards, or collected in the bran, and can easily be gathered up for 

 breakfast in the poultry yard. Mother hens in portable coops with 

 the young chicks or ducks running among the plants, are a very 

 good solution of the slug question on a small scale. Myriads of 

 slugs in the garden are often due to excessive surface irrigation. 

 If the surface is finely worked up and allowed to dry it is very dis- 

 couraging to slugs and is otherwise promotive of plant growth. 



Remedies for Sucking Insects. These are pests both large and 

 small which bring distress to plants without visibly consuming their 

 substance, as has already been described. They are not affected by 

 poison on the surface. They must be killed by applications which 

 destroy by contact with the exterior of the insects. The universally 

 approved remedy for this large class of pests is kerosene emulsion. 

 If properly made and diluted, it is harmless to the plant and deadly 

 to the insect. The formula which is most easily prepared and most 

 available for garden work, is that devised by the late Prof. A. J. 

 Cook as follows : 



Common laundry soap : . % pounds. 



Kerosene 3 pints. 



Water 4% gallons. 



Cut up and dissolve the soap in six quarts of boiling water in a 

 fiv^-gallon oil can. Remove from the fire and add the kerosene, 

 and stir violently until you make an emulsion from which the oil 

 will not separate when cool. This may be done by churning, by 

 revolving agitators, as in an egg beater, or by pumping the stuff 



