TO DESTROY INSECTS. 41 



27i,* Verbena Rust. 



1 could not grow verbenas at all. Some seasons not 

 _i.ore than three or four out of a large bed would live 5 

 u afcher times all would persist, notwithstanding my 

 ire, in dwindling down into sickly, puny plants, willed 

 I could not help feeling were a disgrace to my garde?i, 

 and have many a time rooted up in sheer despair, pre- 

 ferring an empty bed (for they generally hung on until 

 it was too late for anything else to take their place) to 

 the sight of so many invalids. The disease known a* 

 1 black rust ' was the foe I had to contend with. 



" In vain I tried every remedy I would hear of: hat 

 new beds cut in virgin soil, as many gardeners advise, 

 watered with solutions of ammonia, copperas, petrc 

 leum, whale-oil soap, etc. ; at other times had old rotl< 

 ,'mpost brought from the woods and duly mixed with 

 sand a.nd well-rotted manure, and when that failed 

 have tried various fertilizers, but with no better suc- 

 cess. Every book of acknowledged merit I could find 

 jn floriculture I greedily searched in hopes of finding 

 in it some solution of my especial difficulty ; none, 

 however, appeared, and I began to think there must 

 be something in the soil or climate of our particular 

 locality against which it was useless for me to strive 

 longer (I had tried plants from a number of different 

 iiorists, grown both from cuttings and seed), when help 

 <jaiDfl unexpectedly to T. fron? a conversation 1 ha;] 

 ield with s,lren<? sonaa vears previously on the subject 



