

TOMATOES 19 



and though we relieve the affected plant by removing foliage 

 and also resorting to the encouragement of new roots, we 

 cannot claim to have made much headway against it. 



In such a work as this we cannot follow so minutely as we 

 would like the causes and cures of diseases ; the reader must 

 read special literature on the subject. Hvery day brings to 

 light some further facts as the chemist pursues his investigations, 

 and every new step in advance renders more obsolete the dis- 

 coveries of the past. But we have a most robust belief that 

 science will in the end prevail ; that where we now stand more 

 or less impotent, we shall become strong ; and where we stand 

 bewildered in the twilight of to-day, we shall in due course rejoice 

 in the full light of the sun. 



INSECT PESTS 



In addition to these various diseases, the tomato is attacked 

 by insect pests, both of the air and of the soil. Their name is 

 " legion." Millipedes and wireworm, leather- jackets and wood- 

 lice attack the roots or the stems of the plants, and " white fly," 

 the worst plague of all, attacks the upper growths. 



The crawling things, those that attack the roots and the stems, 

 may be trapped with pieces of carrot or potato, an old-fashioned 

 method ; or they may be, as they should be, routed by treatment 

 of the soil. Such powerful and pungent remedies as fresh lime, 

 vaporite, gasonite, naphthalene and some other proprietary pre- 

 parations, carefully used and repeated from time to time, will go 

 a long way towards exterminating them, or at least keeping them 

 in check. As to the white fly, increasing year by year, it is fast 

 becoming as thick and threatening as the Egyptian plague of 

 flies. So persistent are its attacks, so extraordinary is its 

 rate of increase, that though you may kill millions in a single 

 night, millions will yet remain ; and though every living fly 

 may be exterminated, in a week or two the new generation is as 

 numerous as were the old. 



It cannot be fought and conquered once and for all in one 

 pitched battle, so the fight against it must be persistent and 

 followed up for weeks, or if needs be, for months. We have 

 used gasonite fumes and killed so many that the floor of the 



