Seeds 55 
the basis of all hotbeds, and there lay their eggs. I won’t de- 
scribe the white grub, for it is a horror to think of with its thin, 
shiny, bluish-white skin, thick body, and unnecessary equip- 
ment of legs. When you see something from half an inch to 
two inches long that turns your very soul with revolt, it is the 
white grub, that never comes to the surface in bold fashion to 
stand tiptoe on the end of its little tail to eat a plant right 
through above ground as the manly brown cut-worm does. 
No, it wanders just below the surface, eats the roots and 
tender stalks of seedlings that can utter no sound—but just 
die. If you are new to the business you stand around futilely 
witnessing the infant mortality, and declaim against the acts 
of Providence. I was happy in capturing six victims in the 
hotbed though the rows were already decimated, and I knew 
that a whole year had been lost for many of the seeds 
planted. The following June, after my annuals were re- 
moved, I decided to dig over the hotbeds—I then had four— 
which had been prepared in the usual manner with manure 
and loam, except that they were planted late enough not to re- 
quire glass, and to my amazement I found not six grubs, but 
literally hundreds. I immediately understood the cause of my 
former losses, and determined never again to use manure as 
an underpinning of a hotbed, for it is manure alone that at- 
tracts the brown May beetle. In recent years I have gone 
much further and do not use manure anywhere in the garden, 
unless it has been thoroughly mixed with other ingredients in 
a compost heap, and has stood a year or more, and is carefully 
forked over before applying to the beds. I have not found a 
single grubworm for four years and believe this is the only 
safeguard against them. 
Having despatched the battalions, I planted perennial 
seeds again in faith, strengthened by a quantity of wood ashes 
mixed through the soil, as a protection against pests, using no 
