42 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



In the front bed the house-plants moved from the windows when the green blinds 

 were replaced would find suitable summer quarters, and a vase in the centre of it con- 

 taining trailing and other plants would add to its beauty. 



For the flanking beds, plants that require little attention and make a good show are 

 desirable. To my mind the old favourites are the best — low shrubs like the Mahonia, 

 moss-rose, and flowering currant ; St. Joseph lilies ; perennials such as iris, Chinese 

 pceony, dicentra, perennial phlox and bee-larkspur ; biennials as the Sweet William, Can- 

 terbury bell, foxglove and hollyhock — the last named, judiciously placed, produces a fine 

 effect. Such plants require but little time for their cultivation. The forking in of a 

 dressing of manure, an occasional shifting of place and dividing of them to prevent over- 

 growth, are the main operations required. 



Around the whole should be a sheltering belt of evergreens — young pines, hemlocks, 

 and Norway spruce. A few inexpensive rustic seats placed here and there under the 

 trees would give an air of repose to the scene. 



Supposing the buildings, yards, gardens and orchard to occupy five acres out of a 

 hundred acre farm, the space will be well and profitably taken up. 



Now what insect foes would the owner of such a property have to contend with 

 The insect spoilers are numerous. For convenience we may group them into — 



(I.) Those that suck. 

 (II.) Those that bite. 

 Each group may be sub-divided into — 



(1) Open workers. 



(2) Hidden workers. 



And the methods to be taken against them may be spoken of as : 



(a) Preventive. 

 (6) Destructive. 

 Of insects that suck the different kinds of plant-lice and scale-insects are most to be 

 dreaded. They belong to the families Aphid/e, Coccid^ and Coccus in the order 

 Hemiptera. 



Some species of them are familiar to many persons. Their fondness for house plants 

 has brought them into notice ; and the difficulties experienced in exterminating them 

 have created a desire for further information as to their nature and habits. 



The perfect male and female aphides appear 

 late in the year (Fig 6). The female deposits 

 egg-like capsules upon the stems and branches of 

 the food plant of her kind. Each capsule con- 

 tains a perfect louse, which, in early Spring, 

 bursts from its envelope and becomes a stem- 

 mother capable of producing 90 or 100 creatures 

 after her own likeness, and as prolific as herself. 

 Seven or eight generations of such agamic pro- 

 ducers succeed each other — their numbers in- 

 creasing by geometrical progression till they 

 Fig. 6. count up to billions. 



The stem-mother of the aphis has a flask-like body from which project two small 



spouts. Its head is furnished with a proboscis, which the inscet drives into the su >stance 



of the leaf or bark of its food- plant, for the purpose of imbibing the sap. In the 



process of digestion, the sap imbibed is converted into the "honey dew" which the 



insect now and again ejects from the spouts above metioned. 



The plant is injured, in the first place by the withdrawal of nourishment from it, and 



in the second, by the clogging of its stomata, or breathing- pores by the accumulation 



of the viscid honey-dew. 



Now it is evident that the aphides cannot be assailed through their mouths by 



poisonous spraying, as the leaf -eating insects can. They cannot be poisoned, but they 



can be suffocated. Whatever effectually closes their spiracles brings death to them. 



Spraying with kerosine emulsion, applications of whale-oil, size, pyrethrum, tobacco 



smoke, are all effective. 



