VEGETABLE PESTS. 273 



from old trees and burn it; and for the leaf lice, to syringe the trees 

 from underneath, so as to reach the under side of the leaves, where 

 these pests gather, with a solution of whale oil soap with one part in 

 a hundred of kerosene oil added. Melons, cucumbers and cab- 

 bage are especially subject to these pests. For cabbage lice, a strong 

 decoction of red peppers or sprinkling with dry, air-slaked lime has 

 been found useful. Tobacco dust or snuff dusted on when the dew 

 is on the leaves is a certain remedy. 



THE ROSE CHAFER OR BEETLE. 



An ashy brown colored beetle, commonly known as the Rose Bug, 

 but wrongly so, for it is a beetle (all bugs are sucking insects), is 

 exceedingly destructive to grape vines, upon which it devours the 

 blossoms, and to cherries, the young fruit and leaves of which it con- 

 sumes. It also eats into the hearts of the buds and blooms of roses; 

 besides this it infests .many other plants and vegetables, but not so 

 injuriously. It is easily captured from vines, by holding under the 

 insects a common empty fruit can attached to a handle for conven- 

 ience, and touching them with a short rod, when they immediately 

 fall into the vessel. A small quantity of water covered with a film of 

 kerosene oil kills them at once. As they attack the vine first, the 

 main army of them may be routed by an early raid upon them. A 

 sprinkling of Paris Green in water upon the leaves of cherry trees, 

 when the fruit is setting, will destroy a good many of them, and as 

 the dressing remains for some time, it is quite effective. 



VEGETABLE PESTS. 



These include parasitic plants chiefly of a fungoid character, as 

 blights, mildews, rust and smuts. As our knowledge of this class of 

 pests becomes more accurate, it is learned that they generally attack 

 trees and plants that are either constitutionally weak, or are imper- 

 fectly nourished, or are weakened by some accidental injury, through 

 exposure to excessive cold, or too much heat, or by extreme moisture 

 or dryness. This is seen sufficiently clearly in the cases of many 

 plants for which our climate is too hot or dry, as the gooseberry, 

 the English bean, peas late planted, lettuce, and others, which are 

 subject to mildews to a degree that makes their culture extremely 

 difficult; as well as the rusts, which attack oats and wheat when 

 excessively hot sunshine follows a moist, cool night, with fog in the 

 morning. Generally, we believe that the most effective preventive of 

 these diseases (for they are really diseases) is to secure robust health 

 to the trees and plants as far as possible, and then to use such remedies 

 as have been found most useful in checking their spread by contagion. 



