-^ ENEMIES IN THE GARDEN 93 



knew naught about hellebore, or pyrox, or 

 other methods of making war on garden bugs. 



HOSTS OF GARDEN HUNS 



It is passing strange that every species of 

 plants we value seems to have its private and 

 particular enemy. Stranger still that this enemy 

 always finds them, though they may be many 

 miles from where the nearest plants they dote 

 on have been raised before. I really believe 

 that if a ship's captain planted chemically puri- 

 fied potatoes, rose bushes, or squash seeds on an 

 uninhabited coral island, the Colorado, rose, 

 and squash beetles would be on deck as soon as 

 the plants were ready to be exterminated. 

 Prussians couldn't beat them. 



The number of garden Huns is startling. Com 

 alone has more than two hundred enemies, to 

 many of which it would succumb did it not 

 have as its ally an expert poisoner. What poi- 

 sons to get for his crops, when and how to 

 apply them — these are among the multitudinous 

 things a gardener must know. 



He must be a plant doctor, too. Plant dis- 

 eases are as numerous as the sucking, cutting, 

 devouring enemies. Nearly every agricultural 

 college in the country has courses in plant 

 pathology, but there are not enough graduates 

 to constitute a separate profession, so the gar- 

 dener has to do the best he can, just as he does 

 in case of illness in the family if no doctor is nigh. 



