100 THE CANADIAN HORTrCULTUEIST. 



has found white hellebore, applied by putting a large table-spoonful 

 into a pail of water, and sprinkling the rose bushes wdth the water by 

 means of an ordinary watering can, a sure means of destroying them. 

 It is perhaps a better plan to stir a handful of the hellebore into a 

 pail of water and allow it to stand over niglit nntil the next evening, 

 and then stir it up thoroughly and add about a pint of the mixture to 

 a pailful of water, and with this sprinkle the rose bushes. It is a very 

 cheap and easy way of getting rid of the Slugs. In some seasons the 

 Green-ily or Aphis are very abundant, covering the ends of tlie shoots, 

 and sucking out the juices. These are easily destroyed by dipping 

 the ends of the shoots in a strong decoction of tobacco, or by sprinkling 

 the plants, if very badly infested with them, with the tobacco water 

 through a watering can. But a more determined and obstinate insect 

 pest than either of these is the Rose-leaf-hopper, insignificantly small 

 in size, yet making up l)y infinitude of numbers for all lack of indivi- 

 dual magnitude. Entomologists call these little scamps Tettigonia 

 rosae. They are, when full grown, not more than three-twentieths of 

 an inch long, the body is of a yellowish-white color, the wing-cover.s 

 and wings are white, and tlie eyes, claws, and piercer, brown. They 

 begin to hatch out about the middle of June, and appear upon the 

 under side of the leaves without wings, but with an exceedingly sharp 

 piercer or proboscis with which tliey pierce the skin of the leaf and 

 feed upon the juices. This operation they keep up, increasing in size, 

 casting their skins when their jacket becomes too tight for them, and 

 sucking the juices out of the leaf all the more vigorously as they grow 

 larger, until it assumes a pale sickly appearance, and no longer is able 

 to perform its proper functions. The cast off skins of these insects 

 may be found in great numbers adhering to the under side of the 

 leaves, and likewise tlie little creatures themselves, manifesting their 

 vitality by hopping aliout with great agility. Their hind legs are made 

 somewhat like those of a grasshopper, whicli enable them to leap very 

 briskly. After a time their wings appear, and then they seem to be 

 more active than ever, and spread about till they find every rose bush 

 in the garden. The writer has had considerable experience in fighting 

 these little pests, but cannot say that he has succeeded in winning any 

 great victories. Sprinkling the bushes with hellebore and water or 

 with tobacco water from a watering can, is a useless expenditure of labor, 

 for the little hoppers have only to keep their place on the underside 



