172 



POPULAR GARDENING. 



May, 



Aphis. 



Thrips. 



The Insect Pests of Pot Plants. 



The higher temperature of the advancing 

 season, and the thrifty succulent plant 

 growth which is its result, offer conditions l 

 more favorable than at any other time to 

 the rapid multiplication of insect foes in the 

 greenhouse, and call for incessant watchful- 

 ness and prompt action on the part of the 

 owner, who desires to save his plants from 

 serious injury, or from being rendered alto- 

 gether and entirely worthless. 



In the accompanying illustration are 

 shown the most common and most destruc- 

 tive of these green- 

 hoxise pests, both 

 greatly enlarged and 

 in life size. 



Aphis. Every ob- 

 servant tiller of the 

 soil is acquainted 

 with various species 

 of aphis or plant 

 louse, green, black or 

 blue, for there is no 

 kind of tree, shrub or 

 plant known to be 

 exempt from the at- 

 tacks of one or more 

 of these hundreds of 

 species. While often 

 giving much trouble 

 to the fruit grower 

 and vegetable gard- 

 ener, they are still 

 more dangerous and 

 obnoxious to the 

 grower of plants 

 under glass, as he 

 offers them shelter, a most congenial tem- 

 perature, and the food they like. 



The old, well-tried and reliable preven- 

 tive remedy for this pest is fumigation with 

 Tobacco stems regularly once or even twice 

 a week. An improved and perhaps safer 

 method is that of evaporating strong To- 

 bacco tea in little tin boxes or troughs fas- 

 tened upon the heating pipes. If a sufficient 

 number of Lady bugs are put in the green- 

 house, and there colonized, plant lice will 

 give no further trouble. As an out-door 

 remedy we would recommend the kerosene 

 emulsion, sprayed forcibly upon the affected 

 plants. Submerging plants or branches in 

 water of about 130' Fahrenheit, will also rid 

 them of plant lice, but the kerosene remedy 

 is safer and more reliable. 



Rep Spider. This insect is so small as to 

 be hardly visible with the naked eye, yet it 

 is doing great mischief, as they multiply 

 very rapidly, attack the leaves from the 

 underside, where they work under the pro- 

 tection of a tine web, and suck out the juices 

 of the plant. Fortunately these insects 

 cannot endure a moist atmosphere or much 

 wet, and are therefore most readily held in 

 check by frequent syringing and keeping the 

 atmosphere continuously moist. Another 

 pretty sure remedy is the cautious applica- 

 tion of Tobacco fumes. The heating pipes 

 may be painted with a mixture of sulphur 

 and oil, or flower of sulphur placed upon 

 metal plates or pans around the plants, 

 where it is exposed to the sun. 



Scale. The brown scale shown in illus- 

 tration is the most common form of this, 

 roundish or hemispherical in shape, and 

 covered with a brown, tumid, scale-like skin. 

 The young scale, as soon as hatched, at once 

 attaches itself to the branch, and here re- 

 mains. It thrusts its powerful beak into the 

 stem or leaf, and fattens on the juices of the 

 plant. These insects multiply very rapidly, 

 and often do considerable mischief. Spong- 

 ing the plants with the kerosene emulsion 

 or a strong alkaline solution is the remedy 

 • usually found effective. Often the scales 

 adhere so closely to their fastenings that 

 they can only be dislodged by the use of a 

 stiff brush. 



Thrips. They are very small insects of 

 wonderful agility, and often very destructive 

 among plants. The perfect insect has wings 

 and is of blackish color; the larva? are much 

 smaller, wingless, and of lighter color. They 

 may usually be found underneath the leaves 

 of Fuchsias, Azaleas, Ferns, Palms, etc., 

 and down in the sheaths of the foliage of 

 Orchids. The perfect insect has a habit of 

 hiding out of sight when the leaf is touched, 

 and consequently is seldom seen. Whitish 

 patches, usually on the underside of the 

 leaves, and spots of black fluid betray the 



Bed Spider. 

 INSECT PESTS OF POT PLANTS. 



Scale. 



Mealy Bug. 



presence of the foe. The larva as well 

 as the perfect insect injui-e the plants 

 by puncturing the outer skin, and sucking 

 the juices of the leaf. The foliage of plants 

 should be frequently examined, and when- 

 ever thrips are discovered, thoroughly 

 sponged with soap water or a solution of Fir 

 tree oil. Fumigation with Tobacco stems, 

 if repeated on several successive days or 

 nights, or evaporating Tobacco tea, are also 

 usually effective in ridding plants of thrips. 

 Mealy Bug. In this we have an oval 

 insect with a number of legs, and the body 

 covered with a white, mealy, cottony sub- 

 stance. It is especially fond of Stephanotis, 

 Gardenias and similar plants; multiplies 

 very rapidly. It is a pest hard to get rid of 

 after having,.once taken possession of a 

 heated greenhouse. It is also very trouble- 

 some "in Graperies, as it not only infests 

 shoots, foliage and woodwork, but also 

 works among the berries of the bunches. 

 The same solutions advised for thrips may 

 be used for this pest, but thoroughness is 

 always necessary. Be sure to clear every 

 plant, also paint or whitewash the whole 

 structure, and try to get rid of the very last 

 of these insects. In cold houses mealy bug is 

 rarely seen. 



The Ocean as a Tree Planter. 



Nature employs many agencies and de- 

 vices to distribute seeds and plants over her 

 vast domain. It is not generally known, 

 perhaps, says a writer in Youth's Compan- 

 ion, what an important part the sea plays in 

 carrying.or planting seeds. 



I have seen in small bays and sheltered 

 coves along the coast of the Bay Islands, 

 Florida, and among the West Indies, thou- 

 sands of bushels of tropical seeds of every 

 size and form imaginable, from little things 

 not half so large as a kernel of Wheat up to 

 the great Cocoanut, which when covered 

 with its thick husk ofteu will not go into a 

 water bucket; flat, rounded, oblong, angled, 

 wrinkled and irregular seeds, with eyes, and 

 covered with curious markings, a strange 

 and interesting medley of all sorts of vege- 

 table productions. 



In many places they cover acres of surface 

 in the water, or are piled up in regular ricks 

 along the shore. 



In most parts of the tropics there are one 

 or more rainy seasons in the year, during 

 which, often in a very short time, an im- 

 mense amount of water falls, which carries 

 vast quantities of seeds into the streams, 

 and so into the sea. Sometimes the forests 

 reach to the shore, and the fruits that grow 

 on them drop directly into the water. 



Thrown thus upon the bosom of the sea, 

 these little wanderers start out on their 

 journey for unknown 

 shores; it may be days, 

 months or years; alone, 

 or in great drifts; per- 

 haps to be stranded on 

 a cold, inhospitable 

 coast to perish, or to 

 land on some bright 

 tropical beach to find 

 a home as warm and 

 sunny as the one they 

 have left. 



Myriads of them, no 

 doubt, become water- 

 logged, and finally 

 sink to the bottom. 



Little is known of 

 the length of time the 

 germs of seed will live 

 in the ocean. I have 

 seen Cocoanuts float- 

 ing about along tropi- 

 cal beaches, with roots 

 a foot and a half long, 

 and leaves fully twice 

 that length, ready to grow as soon as they 

 were thrown upon the land, and apparently 

 in the most perfect vigor. I am certain that 

 the young Mangroves will live on the sea for 

 a whole year. 



Nature kindly watches over the little 

 wanderers, and though, perhaps, many of 

 them are unfitted for the new situation and 

 perish, others more hardy or better adapted 

 to the circumstances, spring up and live. 



In a few years a colony is established, and 

 the botanist wandering that way finds with 

 astonishment and delight trees and plants 

 growing luxuriantly, which the books say 

 should not be found within a thousand miles 

 of the spot. 



A number of instances are related, by this 

 same writer, of trees found in localities 

 where only the sea could have planted them. 

 On the Island of Trinidad he found a 

 splendid "cocal" extending for fourteen 

 miles along the beach, which is believed to 

 have grown from a shipwrecked cargo of 

 Cocoanuts. 



A group of low, sandy keys near the coast 

 of Balize is now nearly covered with a 

 growth of vegetation, though old settlers 

 teU of a time when nothing grew on them, 

 and they were mere heaps of barren sand 

 piled up by the sea. It is well-known that 

 the coral atolls of the Pacific are clothed 

 with vendure as soon as they are built up 

 high enough above the surf for trees and 

 plants to live on them. 



But one of the most striking cases of the 

 work of planting on an extensive scale 

 by the ocean may be found on the south 

 coast of Florida. No tropical trees or plants 

 are found living in the northern part of the 

 State. Yet in the southern part more than 

 seventy species of trees are met with, besides 

 a large number of shrubs and plants that 

 belong nowhere else except in the American 

 tropics. 



The Gulf Stream bears along a vast quan- 

 tity as seeds of the West Indies, Central and 

 South America, and flowing around the 

 twelve hundred miles of coast of peninsula 

 it kindly .scatters some of them. 



On the lower half of the State, and among 

 the Keys, are found the Machineel, Shore 



