THE GARDEN 5l 



If they are very badly affected, and do not readily yield to treatment, 

 cut them down to within a foot or so of the ground and encourage an en- 

 tirely new growth. 



Green fly (aphis) will often attack the plants if their vitality is low- 

 ered from some cause. They will be found on the under side of the leaves. 

 A liberal use of tobacco dust, or spraying with tobacco water, will soon de- 

 stroy them. Keep at this treatment as long as a single sign of these ver- 

 min remains. 



The aster bug and cucumber beetle will attack dahlias if they are 

 prevalent in your region. As a rule, however, these pests appear fn 

 small numbers so that they may be picked off by hand. 



In all dahlia growing be careful to watch for any signs of cutworms 

 when the luscious young shoots are coming up from the root. At this 

 time, above all others, the light green stalks are deliciously slicculent to 

 bugs, beetles, and such like. 



A liberal sprinkling of lime, slacked in the open air, will usually prove 

 sufficiently discouraging to all such as had intended enjoying a feast. 

 Even if some of the fat shoots have been eaten up, they will develop again 

 below the surface, conditions being encouraging. 



In our own minds we have always depended a deal on the help of the 

 hose spray. ' 



Careful and copious spraying, with an observant eye on the alert to 

 sep that the spray is none too strong on tender young shoots, and also care- 

 fully directed towards the under sides of the foliage — this is our one de- 

 pendable remedy. Insects cannot get much headway if they are swept 

 out of existence every morning with a fine, cool spray. 



Early on a scorching morning we noticed a few branches, of our purple 

 clematis commence to wilt. Happily it was one of the shortest branches 

 coming up from the root. 



As a terrible calamity had happened last year in the very middle of the 

 blooming season — a calamity which had commenced with the same quick 

 wiltering of leaves, followed by the darkening in color until they were 

 black, soft, and apparently utterly lifeless, we wasted no time in hunting 

 the cause. 



When a healthy, thoroly well-rooted and tried blooming plant sud- 

 denly becomes ill an this manner there is but one thing to do, that is trace 

 the sickness to its beginning. 



In this case the topmost leaves withered first. Within half-a-day the 

 whole long branch, from the base to the very tip, leaves, buds^ tendrils and 

 all, became soft, finally black (the leaves remaining toughly attached to 

 the vine for days before they fell off), and it did not need a very skilled 

 expert to tell that something had eaten at the innermost life of the plant. 

 Tracing inch by inch down the hard brown squarish vine, no sign of 

 trouble or anything out of the ordinary appeared until where the branch 

 issued from the soil. So it was plain trouble was below. Several other 

 fine hsalthy branches also came from the same root. So far they had not 

 yet showed signs of disease. Therefore, the trouble must be below earth. 

 Digging — oh so very oarefully— with searching fingers around the five or 

 six strong stems coming up from below, we finally found a spot on the in- 

 jured branch that looked as if the fine bark had been scratched away with 

 a pin. It seemed to be peeling off in narrow strips. No one of the 

 others was marked in the same way. What to do? - We did not dare to 

 uncover the very root. But we might go further with the injured branch 

 — it was dead, anyway. So it was cut off at that spot. Riddled thru, 

 dried completely out; no signs of bug or nest of any kind. Sprinkling 

 some fine wood ashes around the root, we left the plant alone. We had not 

 found the trouble. Nothing further hapi^ened that season. The other 



