8o THE BOOK OF THE CARNATION 



Pinks, and is itself destroyed by syringing with extract of 

 quassia. 



Earwigs in some seasons are terribly destructive. They 

 effect their way to the base of the petals, which they 

 cut through, and occasionally reduce flowers to the bare 

 calyx and seed-pod. As they affect a dry hiding-place, 

 bits of dry moss secreted in small flower-pots, or the 

 hollow stems of umbelliferous plants, placed where they 

 are observed, afford ready means of trapping them. 



Eelworm. In Scotland, eelworm attack is dreaded as 

 much as Helminthisporium on Malmaisons is in England, 

 where its most deadly ravages are chiefly felt in the cases 

 of the Perpetual or Tree section. This destructive pest 

 is introduced to the economy of the Carnation by the 

 medium of the soil, and as the almost invisible worms 

 exist solely on the tissues of the plant, and are protected 

 by the epidermis of the leaves, once they have effected a 

 lodgment it is impossible to reach them. Badly affected 

 plants should in any case be destroyed, but those only 

 slightly affected may, by careful treatment, permitting 

 them to experience no check to growth, and propagating 

 only the healthy tips of the shoots, be restored to a normal 

 condition. In America, previous to using soil, it is super- 

 heated during thirty minutes by means of steam-heated 

 pipes, a process that destroys all living organisms, vegetable 

 as well as insect, without lowering its qualities as a rooting 

 and feeding medium. Eelworm is Tylenchus devastatrix. 



Eucharis mite has been found lurking in the lower 

 parts of Carnation stems. I have had no experience of 

 this, the Rhizoglyphus echinopus, except in connection with 

 eucharis and amaryllis, when an emulsion of petroleum 

 applied very hot has been effective for a time. 



Green fly is particularly troublesome in the case of pot 

 plants of all sections, though it is perhaps most destruc- 

 tive in the case of Malmaisons, rendering not only the 

 foliage of these unsightly and diseased, but in bad 



