130 — Hov/ to Make the Garden Pay. 



to squash and pumpkin vines, corn, etc. One of the surest 

 ways of getting rid of them, is to find the burrows, insert a one- 

 quarter or one-half pound charge of dynamite with a long fuse, 

 stop up every opening, then fire the end of the fuse outside, and 

 leave the animal to its fate. A mixture of tar, sulphur and salt- 

 petre, burned inside the burrow, with all the openings closed, will 

 also hardly ever fail to produce the desired effect. 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS. 



Kerosene for Insects. — Once more I wish to call special 

 attention to the virtues of kerosene as an insecticide. Its mere 

 contact is sure death to most insects, among them to many 

 which do not readily yield to other treatments. Almost all slugs, 

 maggots, worms, lice on plants and animals, and many beetles 

 and bugs and their eggs are readily killed if we can reach them 

 with kerosene. All we have to do is to apply it in such form or 

 dilution that it will do no direct damage to the plants or trees. 

 The Division of Entomology, United States Department of Ag- 

 riculture, recommends the following formula for emulsifying 

 kerosene : 



Per cent. 



Kerosene oil 2 gallons. 67 



Common soap or whale oil soap 2 pound. 1 



Water I gallon, j ^^ 



Dissolve the soap over a brisk fire in boiling water, and 

 when in solution remove from the fire and add the oil. Churn 

 the mixture for a few minutes by means of a force-pump and 

 spray nozzle, or if these are not at hand, beat with a paddle until 

 a cream-like emulsion is obtained. Care must be taken that the 

 oil is thoroughly emulsified. If free oil is present it will rise to 

 the top of the liquid after dilution and injure the foliage. If well 

 made, the emulsion thickens on cooling into a jelly-like mass, 

 which adheres, without oiliness, to the surface of glass. In mak- 

 ing kerosene emulsion use rain-water if possible, or, if the well- 

 water is hard, add an ounce of lye or a little baking (bicarbonate 

 of) soda to the water. For scale insects dilute one part of the 

 emulsion with nine parts of cold water ; for many other insects, 

 one part of emulsion to fifteen parts of water, and for soft insects, 

 like plant-lice, from twenty to twenty-five parts of water may be 

 used to one of the emulsion. Milk is considered even preferable 

 to rain-water. 



Another method of applying kerosene is in a mechanical mix- 

 ture with water. Professor E. S. Goff, of the Wisconsin Experi- 

 ment Station, first hit upon this idea, and this has led to the con- 

 struction of an attachment to knapsack sprayers by the Missis- 

 sippi Station which does away with all the trouble of making an 

 emulsion, at the same time with every danger of injury to plants 



