CHAPTER X. 

 GARDEK INSECTS. 



Owing to the depredations of sparrows, blackbirds, 

 chickens, and other feathery thieves, moles and mice 

 underground, squirrels, woodchucks, cats and dogs 

 above ground, the painstaking gardener will find many of 

 his labors frustrated by an innumerable host of enemies 

 coming and going throughout the season. Among these 

 may be included slugs, grubs, cutworms, caterpillars, 

 sap suckers, plant lice, the larva of day butterflies and 

 night moths in various stages of transformation. Some 

 seasons they all appear to be present and combine in an 

 attack to defeat every operation of the gardener. At 

 other times they most graciously absent themselves; 

 but the gardener is never without a sufficient number to 

 keep him well on the defensive. 



Insecticides. The subject of insecticides and traps 

 is one to which is now given much attention, and 

 country stores in every district are all well supplied 

 with preparations and apparatus without number, all 

 offered as the best, however poor. 



An unscientific description of a few of the common 

 destructive insects in the garden, with suggested reme- 

 dies for destroying them, may not be out of place. 

 Insect preventives may be said to be of two forms of 

 application : Steeps, in which the seed, before sowing, is 

 soaked, and dressings, with which the plants are covered. 

 These may again be divided into two classes : Repellants, 

 as gasoline, tar, kerosene, sulphur powder, which act by 

 overcoming the natural odor of plants attractive to cer- 



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