SQUASHES, HOW TO GROW THE^r, ETC. 59 



on my vines, and I cultivate several acres annually. "When 

 the plants are young, they are likely to be found, if at all, 

 below the elementary leaves, sucking out the juices from 

 the vine itself. For these fellows there is nothing like fin- 

 ger work. I have known an instance in the interior where 

 they were so numerous on Pumpkin vines planted among 

 com, that the mere smell of them acted as an emetic to 

 three separate sets of hands that attempted to hoe the 

 corn patch. 



The squash maggot is hatched from the egg of an insect 

 bearing a close resemblance to the lady-bug, but of a size 

 considerably larger. The eggs are usually deposited near 

 the root of the vine, within an inch or two of the ground ; 

 and in seasons when this insect abounds, eggs are depos- 

 ited at the junction of the leaf stalks with the vine along 

 some six or eight feet of vine. As soon as the egg is 

 hatched, the maggot begins to eat his way through the 

 center of the vine, and his boring will be seen outside his 

 hole, like those of an apple-tree borer. The vines thus at- 

 tacked will wither under a mid-day sun, and the injured 

 ones are thus readily detected. Squashes on such vines 

 usually make but little growth, and the vines ultimately 

 die. If the presence of the borer 'is early detected, he can 

 sometimes be killed by thrusting a wire, or stout straw 

 into his hole ; sometimes the vine is slit open and the in- 

 truder found and killed, but vines thus treated do not 

 always recover. If the slit portion is covered with earth 

 and pegged down, sometimes but little injury is done. I 

 have taken thirteen borers from a single vine, some of the 

 largest being an eighth of an inch in diameter and an inch 

 in length. 



It happens, at times, after the vines have made a vigorous 

 growth of several feet, they suddenly wilt and die with- 

 out any perceptible cause; no insects are to be found on 

 the leaves, there are no borers in the vines, and on exam- 

 ining the roots, everything to be seen by the naked eye 



