PROTECTION OF THE SEED-BEDS AGAINST ANIMALS. 191 



keep them out. The only plain is to scare them away with rattles 

 or scarecrows, or to leave one or two small openings by whicjt 

 they may be encouraged to enter rather than at any other point, 

 and there to shoot or trap them as they enter. Coops may also be 

 used. 



SQUIRRELS. Squirrels can be kept off only by constant 



watching and moving about. For beds, in which the seedlings are 

 still small or the seeds have not yet germinated, coops will answer 

 perfectly. 



RATS, MICE AND MOLES. Most of these are burrowing animals. 

 Moles are sometimes very useful, as they feed on insects and 

 worms, but they undermine the beds and thus cause destruction to- 

 both seeds and seedlings. When numerous, they should be trap- 

 ped or poisoned, but they are fortunately confined only to tho 

 Himalayan region. Rats and mice do damage sometimes by eating 

 the seeds, sometimes by nibbling round and at the roots of the- 

 young plants. They may often be successfully caught in ordinary 

 half-burnt water pots (ghcwds\ let into the ground and half full of- 

 water, and with their mouths concealed with a thin covering of 

 grass. But the most effective plan is to poison them. Grains of 

 wheat specially prepared with strychnine, or large pills of flour 

 containing strychnine, arsenic or phosphorus, should be put into 

 drain-tiles placed underground or on the beds at various points. 



MONKEYS. These pests can be kept at a distance only by shoot- 

 ing one or two as often as they approach the nursery. 



INSECTS AND SPIDERS. Seeds and all parts of plants are liable 

 to the attacks of insects. 



Seeds that have a protracted germination necessarily suffer most. 

 Those liable to be attacked should be shown in surkhi-ash and their 

 sojourn in the soil shortened by some forcing process. Ash should 

 also be sprinkled over the bed. Soaking the seeds in a solution of 

 camphor, besides hastening germination^ also preserves them from 

 the attacks of insects. 



Grubs of beetles gnaw roots, their presence being betrayed by 

 the sudden withering up of a seedling here and a seedling there, 

 They must be picked out of the soil one by one. Some other 

 insects that attack roots live in larger or smaller colonies. The 

 latter are easily destroyed ; but white ants are extremely difficult 

 to overcome. The drenching of the soil by means of irrigation 

 often suffices to keep them away. Sprinkling the beds with a 

 weak solution of assafoetida is thoroughly effective. The decom- 

 posing juices of some plants, such as the prickly pear 



