A YEAR'S GARDENING 



EARWIGS 



Dahlias are the favourite haunt of these insects, but any flowers 

 of sufficient size are utihzed by them for shelter. The insects are 

 so quick in movement and so anxious for concealment that even 

 when entrapped they wiU escape if care be not used. Perhaps the 

 best and simplest trap is that of a small flower-pot, stuffed with a 

 Jittle diy moss and inverted on the top of a stake, but 

 Traps ^Q jjg effective it should be examined every evening-— 



or better still, both morning and evening — and its catch of earwigs 

 destroyed by plunging it into hot water. 



SLUGS AND SNAILS 



In moist gardens, and particularly in beds which are edged with 

 grass or some herbaceous border, slugs and snails may do much 

 mischief; not only in the vegetable garden but also in the flower- 

 beds. Among slugs the small black-and-white varieties are pro- 

 bably the most destructive, because they are less readily detected, 

 whereas the larger sort can easily be caught with a pair of tongs by 

 Laree Kind hunting for them at nightfall; a warm, damp evening 

 may be is sure to bring them abroad. Fresh lime, dusted on 



Caught the ground, is a common remedy, but its efficacy in 



rainy weather is soon exhausted, and in the writer's 

 Wbod^shes ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^t means of protection from slugs is the 



use of wood ashes and the ashes which are the result 

 of the occasional bonfire of such garden rubbish as cannot be dug in 

 as manure. These ashes, if kept dry and mixed with a little soot and 

 coal ashes, are invaluable for dusting over seedlings and young 

 vegetable crops, as in addition to warding off the attacks of slugs 

 they enrich the soil and thereby promote a rapid growth which 

 quickly emancipates the plant from the attacks of vermin. This 

 method is also a protection from the ravages of snails, against whom, 

 however, a more open warfare may be waged by searching for them 

 at evening or early morning and destro5mig them. A good plan to 

 O'l d S t P'^^v^nt snails crawling up a wall is to daub the bottom 

 1 an 00 ^£ ^j^g ^^ ^^j^ ^ paste compounded of train oil and 

 soot, thus forming a barrier over which they will not pass. 



WASPS 



The summer depredations of wasps may often become a serious 



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