192 PERMANENT NURSERIES. 



Dillenii^ nim, &c., keep white ants at a distance, and their leaves 

 should therefore he used in sufficient proportion in preparing 

 vegetable mould, or rotted in a tank or cistern through which the 

 irrigation water has to pass. It is superfluous to add that, where 

 white ants abound, manures which attract them should be avoided. 



Those insects which nibble round the root-collum, near which, 

 when not feeding, they lie concealed in the ground, should be dug 

 out and destroyed. 



Insects which attack green herbaceous parts must be picked 

 or brushed off one by one and killed. The brush represented in 

 Fig. 36 may otten be found convenient for the purpose. 



Spiders suck the juices of plants or injure their foliage with the 

 webs they weave. They are easily destroyed. 



Many birds, especially the family of starlings (chief among them 

 the maina, which digs out insects from the soil) and the Indian 

 Roller, and shrikes, prey upon insects. Such birds ought to be 

 encouraged by giving them every facility for nidification. Shrews 

 and lizards also are very useful enemies of insects. 



B. Protection against frost, 



North of a line passing from Broach through Nassik, Auranga- 

 bad, Chanda and Raipur and west of its continuation through 

 Hazaribagh, Patna and Muzaffarpur night frost is one of the great- 

 est enemies the Indian forest nurseryman has to contend against. 

 The simplest and cheapest plan is to fix thatch tatties over the 

 seedlings (Fig. 37, a). But if the frosts are severe, a similar tatty 

 (Fig. 37, })) should also be placed edgewise along the south-east 

 side of each bed so as to keep the morning sun off the plants. 

 It is superfluous to add that all these tatties should be light and 

 moveable, and should be taken off every morning as soon as the 

 air has again become warm and the frost has completely disap- 

 peared, being put up again about an hour before night-fall. 



Where the dhadu or wind from the Himalayan snows blows, a 

 tatty should be put up, during its prevalence, on the north side of 

 each bed. 



Another plan is to stick twigs and small branches in the ground 

 between the lines. If the cold is not severe, these twigs and 

 branches, if they do not altogether keep out frost, at least mitigate 

 it and prevent a too rapid thaw, and they also have the advantage 

 of not stopping the formation of dew on the plants and in the 

 upper layers of the soil. 



A third plan is to place over the beds the wooden coops already 



