Diseases and Injurious Insects 



in the middle of the day, as they are at that time feeding all over 

 the tree, and any which are overlooked will immediately com- 

 mence building a new nest, and consequently multiply the number 

 of nests to be destroyed. 



The common Rose caterpillar is easily got rid of by hand- 

 picking or by dusting with Paris green. 



Slugs are about the commonest pest, and these destructive 

 molluscles are well known to all garden owners. They seem par- 

 tial to soft-wooded plants of low growth, hiding under the leaves 

 which touch the ground, and feeding on the undergrowth and 

 flower stalks, seeming to take delight in eating holes into or pieces 

 out of the leaves and flower-stems, thus ruining many promising 

 flower-beds. 



Among the most effective remedies are baits of cabbage and 

 lettuce leaves laid near the plants which need protection. These 

 traps should be set in the evening and examined the next morn- 

 ing; the slugs should be shaken off and covered with lime, salt 

 or wood ashes. All of these applications should be repeated at 

 least once, as the slugs seem to have strength enough to crawl off 

 with one coat of the dust and to throw it off with a coat of slime, 

 but the second application invariably kills them. Frequent dust- 

 ing of the ground immediately around where the plants are 

 troubled has a great tendency to drive off the slugs. A little dust- 

 ing of lime close to the neck of favorite plants is also a good cure 

 and a better preventive. A dressing of soot is a very good fer- 

 tilizer and a good protection against all the varieties of slugs 

 and snails. 



The Scale insects are among the most dangerous and trouble- 

 some of injurious insects, a single female raising from two hun- 

 dred to five hundred at a single brood. They are said to hatch 

 four or five generations a year. For the clearing of nursery stock, 

 hydrocyanic acid gas is frequently used by fumigating, but, as 

 it is necessary to have the use of a tent in doing this, it is not 



[307] 



