VI. DISEASES OF FRUIT-TREES. 



flag, to take it up, and destroy the worms. They are 

 particularly fond of lettuces that have been transplanted j 

 and I have had whole rows of lettuces destroyed by 

 these worms, in spite of every precaution. 



307. WOOD-LOUSE. Is a little grey-coloured in- 

 sect of a flat shape, and about twice as long as it is 

 broad. When you touch it, or when it sees itself in 

 danger, it forms itself into a ball, and very much re- 

 sembles a Dutch cheese, and is, by the children in the 

 country, called the cheese-bob. Its name of wood-louse 

 comes from its habit of living and breeding in rotten 

 wood, and under boards or slabs that are lying upon the 

 ground j but it also haunts very much the cracks in 

 bricks, and the holes in the joints of walls. It feeds 

 upon buds and blossoms, and also upon the fruit itself. 

 When it gets into hot-beds, it hides round the edge of 

 the frame, and does a great deal of mischief to the plants, 

 especially when they are young. Cabbage -leaves or 

 lettuce-leaves laid in a hot-bed or against the edge of the 

 wall, will invite them to take shelter as a place of re- 

 treat for the day, all the dilapidations being committed 

 in the night. You lift the leaves in the day-time and 

 kill them } and, further, as to walls, the great remedy is 

 to keep all the joints well pointed, and to fill up any 

 cracks that there may be in the bricks. 



308. EAR- WIG. This is a most pernicious insect, 

 which feeds on flowers and on fruit, and which, if it con- 

 gregated like the ant, would actually destroy every 

 thing of this sort. Its favourite flowers are those of the 

 carnation kind. To protect very curious plants against 



