124 Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens 



I am told that in the great cosmogony toads are invaluable 

 to the gardener. I wish they had neater habits, and would 

 squat on the walks, instead of wallowing out great holes under 

 valued possessions. If we must have toads, let them be small 

 and trig of figure, young and ever active. I have a hoary old 

 grandfather with a spread of six inches from tip to tail, that 

 clucks like a hen. 



Another trial is the mouse that gnaws the bark of shrubs, 

 girdles young trees, and eats the rootstocks of iris, and nibbles 

 young perennials. Sometimes it may be caught in a trap, 

 sometimes it is poisoned, but the surest way to protect trees 

 and shrubs is to tie about them strips of tarred paper from six 

 to ten inches high. If a heavy mulch is applied to the garden 

 before the ground freezes, both mice and moles will seek win- 

 ter shelter in the mellow soil, which may be prevented by late 

 mulching after a hard freeze. 



When the cutworm has been ordinarily numerous, there is 

 no respite in the war waged against it, but a new campaign 

 begins from the tenth to the fifteenth of June against a small 

 tan-colored beetle called the rose-bug. And why rose-bug? 

 By courtesy alone should it thus be called. For years it has 

 ravaged the panicles of our sumachs, stripping the creamy 

 green blossoms down to the bare stems. There is where I 

 failed. I should have pursued it long ago; but, as I have only 

 recently squandered myself on choice roses, I am just awaken- 

 ing to the fact that the rose-bug is a desperate evil. Authori- 

 ties agree that hand picking alone conquers. 



Some days before the new roses were in bloom, I discovered 

 that a certain fern was suddenly blighted it was the rose-bug 

 at work. As I had never measured the strength and number 

 of this foe, I merely began a stampede; but one can't do that 

 long; so I got a large tin tobacco-box (how useful Adam's 

 manners and customs are to me) and mixing a little kerosene 



