HOW TO DESTROY INSECTS. 39 



" 1 have seen this application change the color of a 

 dull, sickly pink rose into a most lovely and vivid red. 

 If a rose seems to be dying, or much injured by a hard 

 winter, don't give it up until you have tried watering it 

 once a week with soot-tea, made by boiling one light pint 

 of soot in twelve of water. This is also excellent for 

 fuchsias. If the leaves of your heliotrope are brown and 

 rusty on the edges, remove the surface soil carefully and 

 replace it with fresh dirt which has a good deal of 

 charcoal and one teaspoonful of soot mixed with it, and 

 the good result will soon be apparent. Now for the 

 grand ' Masonic ' secret of success. Always top-dress 

 your plants if they seem sickly or refuse to bloom, but, 

 don't repot them every time they seem to be doing 

 badly. Top-dressing has as good an effect as ' change 

 of air ' with human invalids, but too frequent repotting 

 is truly said to be the bane of plant-culture." 



Scale-louse, Meat;' -buy, etc. 



" I have had something to do with the above-men- 

 tioned intruders during the past summer. These dis- 

 gusting creatures were introduced to my notice by a 

 myrtle and two bouvardias (pink and white) received 

 from the greenhouse some months ago. I wondered 

 why my myrtle grew so slowly, and one day, on giving 

 it a more loving look than usual, I discovered it was 

 literally covered with little brown scales, the midribs 

 and axil of every leaf, and all along the woody stem, 



