56 SQUASHES, HOW TO GROW THEM, ETC. 



feed on both the upper and under surface of the leaf, and, 

 sucking its juices, soon reduce it to a dry, dead net- work. 

 The eating of the seed leaves of the plant, the two leaves 

 which first appear, is not always fatal, provided the leaf 

 that starts from between them is uninjured ; if this, how- 

 ever, is eaten out, for all practical purposes the plant is de- 

 stroyed, and should be pulled up and thrown away, no 

 matter if the seed leaves are wholly uninjured. In those lo- 

 calities where the striped bug is not very prevalent, the 

 greatest harm of its ravages is sometimes prevented by 

 planting the seed about the tenth of May, should the 

 weather permit, which will enable the vines to get so far 

 along as usually to be beyond the reach of serious in- 

 jury. The preventives to the ravages of this little insect, 

 which attacks the whole vine family, including cucumbers 

 and melons, are numerous. They may nearly all be 

 brought under two classes : those which act mechanically, 

 by covering the leaves so as to make them inaccessible to 

 its punctures, and those which repel the insect by their 

 disagreeable odors or pungent flavor. The best protectors 

 of the first class are hand glasses, little frame-works 

 covered with millinet or some very coarse cotton cloth, 

 or, as this insect usually flies but a few inches above the 

 surface of the earth, any box, circular or square, 

 from which the bottom has been removed, having 

 sides about ten inches in height. The remedies of 

 the second class are those which are principally relied 

 on where squashes are cultivated on a large scale. These 

 should be applied early in the morning when the dew is 

 on, or directly after a rain, when the leaves are wet, that 

 they may adhere. In using them a small fine sieve will 

 be found very convenient. The best of these remedies I 

 name in the order of their popularity in great squash- 

 growing districts. Ground plaster, oyster-shell lime, air 

 slaked lime, ashes, soot, charcoal dust, and common dust. 

 Plaster and oyster-shell lime I consider of equal value, and 



