CHAPTER XI. 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETABLES. 



In this chapter only the more common insects infesting 

 garden vegetables are referred to. There are many others 

 that almost yearly cause some damage to our crops and which 

 in occasional years cause serious loss. But to enumerate 

 them would require more space than can be afforded here. In 

 dealing with them it is well to remember that biting insects, 

 such as potato beetles and blister beetles, are generally most 

 surely destroyed bj arsenical poisons such as Paris green 

 and London purple: while sucking insects, such as plant lice 

 and chinch bugs, are not affected by them, but are most readily 

 destroyed by external applications, as of tobacco water and 

 kerosene emulsion. We should also remember that in our war 

 upon injurious insects we have the support of most of the birds, 

 and of the moles and shrews, and these should be protected 

 as the friends of man rather than be destroyed, as is too often 

 the case among thoughtless or ignorant people. Moles and 

 shrews are especially useful since they work under ground, 

 and feed largely on various insects that are difficult to destroy 

 on account of their living in the soil. It is perhaps no exag- 

 geration to say that the shrew (often called mole) will eat its 

 weight of insects each day. Insects are also liable to attacks 

 of parasites, or of fungous and other diseases, which destroy 

 them in large numbers and often in a very short time. 



When insects appear in small numbers, hand picking is 

 often a very efficient remedy, but when they become very 

 abundant some other method of destroying them must be de- 

 vised. 



METHODS OF DESTROYING INSECTS. 



Pyrethrum is the insect powder of the stores. It is made 

 by grinding the flowers of the pyretherum plant, which closely 

 resembles the common oxeye daisy. It is not poisonous to 

 higher organized animals, although very destructive to many 



