Insects and Other Foes.— m 



squash bug, etc. Wherever circumstances allow, therefore, each 

 crop should be planted at considerable distance from any place 

 where the same or a similar crop was grown the year before. 

 This practice, although it may not prevent insect visits entirely, 

 must at least put enough of the depredators off the track to 

 materially moderate the amount of damage coming from that 

 source. For the home garden, and for smaller operations 

 generally, such a course cannot often be followed, and other 

 means of protection have to be sought. 



Foremost among preventive measures stands the often 

 employed practice of hiding the plants, in boxes or open frames, 

 or under mosquito netting, or by surrounding them with other 

 quicker-growing plants (buckwheat, beans, etc.), which not only 

 serve as a screen, but also disguise their scent. Strong-smelling 

 substances, such as carbolic acid, kerosene, turpentine, etc., are 

 also quite frequently used to hide the natural scent of the exposed 

 plants, thus removing one of the chief means by which insects 

 are enabled to find their food plants. Another quite common 

 preventive consists in covering the endangered plants with some 

 substance (plaster, lime, etc.), that is distasteful to their enemies, 

 and this, unless they come in excessive numbers, or are 

 exceedingly hungry, is often effective in driving them off. Either 

 hand-picking and mashing, or poisoning, must be resorted to 

 where preventives cannot be employed, or have not proven 

 effective. That all the natural enemies of our injurious insects — 

 birds, toads, snakes, cannibal insects, such as the useful and pretty 

 little ladybird, the colosoma (ground or tiger beetle), the soldier 

 bug, etc. — should be encouraged and given shelter, need hardly 

 be mentioned. A list of the most destructive and common 

 insect enemies and the most improved ways of preventing their 

 •nischief, will be found in the following : 



Ants {Formica). — Although not generally directly destruc- 

 tive to garden vegetables, they are sometimes quite obnoxious 

 in consequence of their manner of throwing up hills. Destroy 

 their nests by pouring boiling water, or hot strong alum water 

 over the hills. The ants can also be trapped very easily by 

 placing a coarse sponge moistened with sweetened water near 

 their haunts, thus attracting them in large numbers. When the 

 sponge is black with the creatures, throw it into boiling water; 

 then wash it out and reset the trap. Poisoned molasses placed 

 near their haunts, will also soon make an end to their existence. 



Aphis or Plant Louse. — Of the hundreds of species of green, 

 black, and blue aphis in existence, quite a number are trouble- 

 some to the gardener. Fortunately the whole tribe is quite 

 tender ; and lettuce, cabbages and cauliflowers seriously infested, 

 perhaps almost wholly covered by these lice, are sometimes 

 entirely cleared of them by a cold spell or a hard rain, etc., and 



