184 NEW ZEALAND GARDENING. 



Remedies. For the spider in glass houses and frames 

 to every gallon of tobacco-water add two pounds of flour of 

 sulphur and as much quicklime as will make the mixture as 

 thick as whitewash, and with this wash your pits, frames, 

 or houses inside ; for the mixture, when the sun is on it, 

 wilt create an atmosphere in which no insect can survive. 

 Another method of destroying the spider is by laying flour 

 of sulphur on slates or boards about the house, where the 

 sun will play upon it. The fumes caused by the heat will 

 destroy the insects. Fumes of burning sulphur will soon rid 

 a house of these and other pests ; but the greatest caution is 

 necessary in using sulphur in this way, or the remedy may 

 prove far worse than the disease. We have seen a whole 

 year's crop of vines destroyed by an overdose. Cucumbers 

 and melons, in frames or out of doors, are frequently much 

 injured by the spider. They may be got rid of by dusting 

 the surface of the soil, which should be frequently stirred, 

 with fresh slack lime and flour of sulphur. 



In the case of fruit trees infested with red spider the 

 leaves as they fall in Autumn should be carefully raked 

 together and burned, and all prunings should be treated in 

 the same manner. The stem and branches should receive a 

 dressing composed of soft soap containing nine per cent, of 

 potash. This soap mixed with twenty-five per cent, of its 

 weight of flour of sulphur ; one pound of this mixture to 

 the gallon of water will be strong enough. Apply with a 

 stiff brush and rub well in. 



Summer Wash, Trees infested with red spider may be 

 syringed with the above solution without injury to the foliage. 

 The success or otherwise of these dressings depends entirely 

 on the manner in which the washing or syringing is carried 

 out. The red spider, like all other parasitical insect pests, 

 lives on the sap of the plant it attacks. 



Pear Slug (Selandria Cerasi). This pest is now 

 common in most parts of New Zealand. It attacks not only 

 pears, but cherries and plums, and white thorn, preventing 

 their healthy growth by destroying the leaves (or the lungs 

 of the tree) before the tree has had time to mature the year's 

 growth. The female makes an incision in the leaf, and then 

 deposits its eggs, in a few days the young larva is hatched, 



