88 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 
flower-buds, very often rendering the first opening flowers 
useless. Spraying with quassia extract is effectual for plants 
outside, while, for plants under glass, vaporising is most 
valuable, and the fumigation may be repeated a second or 
a third time, at intervals of three or four days. 
Earwigs are in some seasons a nuisance, attacking and 
eating the young foliage ; but they are most destructive to 
the flowers, concealing themselves at the base of the petals, 
upon which they feed. An excellent trap consists of a 
hollow bamboo, thrust in the soil beside the plant; the 
earwigs will secrete themselves in this at night, where they 
can be captured and killed by means of a wire pushed down 
the hollow of the bamboo. The old-fashioned flower-pot 
trap, filled with dry hay or moss, is a simple and good way 
of catching them. An occasional examination with a lan- 
tern at night, will reveal earwigs and other nocturnal visitors, 
including snails and weevils, when they may be destroyed. 
Wireworm is more to be dreaded by the Carnation- 
grower than any other pest; it causes many Carnations 
to die amongst those planted out under glass and in the 
open. While some soils are quite free of the pest, others 
are badly infested with it, and these are highly dangerous 
soils to use at any price, unless thoroughly sterilised by 
roasting, as advised under “ Potting.’ Although roasting is 
recommended for indoor plants, care must be taken that the 
soil is not allowed to burn. This may be prevented by con- 
tinually stirring and turning it during the process of roasting. 
Land intended for Carnation planting, when worked in the 
autumn as previously advised, if wireworm is present in it, 
may have gas-lime sprinkled thickly upon it after digging ; 
the winter rains washing the properties of the lime into the 
