74 



THE GAEDENER'S ASSISTANT. 



Remedies. — Fumigation with tobacco -paper, 

 tobacco, MacDougal's fumigating sheets, the 

 Thanatophore or Lethorion vapour cone, or 

 XLALL Vaporiser, should be resorted to on still 

 nights. This should be done at the commence- 

 ment of the evil before the aphides have had 

 time to spoil the flowers. Choice flowers may 

 be cleaned by means of a camel-hair pencil. 

 Fumigation should be done lightly. 



Fruit and Seed Enemies. 



Ants. — There are about 30 species of ants 

 in this country, besides which our hothouses are 

 infested with numerous exotic species. Out of 

 doors some of them prove very annoying on 

 lawns by casting up heaps of rubbish where 

 they make their nests, by undermining and cut- 

 ting the roots of choice plants in the border and 

 rockery, and by destroying the fruit of Peaches, 

 Nectarines, Pears, and other soft fruits. Under 

 glass they render various plants filthy by farm- 

 ing aphides and scales, by undermining the roots 

 of pot-plants, and by eating soft fruits. 



Remedies. — In Melon, Peach, and other fruit- 

 houses, deep jars, partly filled with water in 

 which brown sugar or strong-smelling molasses 

 have been dissolved, should be sunk to the rim 

 in soil near their runs, or have bridges placed 

 against them, and ants will be decoyed and 

 drowned in large numbers. Bones with a small 

 quantity of boiled meat upon them will attract 

 ants in large numbers, when the bones now and 

 again may be dipped in boiling water to kill the 

 vermin. Pots or seed-pans filled with dry earth 

 may be stood near their runs, and the ants will 

 often make their nests in them, when they can 

 be carried to a distance, emptied, and the ants 

 completely destroyed. Indoors or outside, where 

 there are no valuable plants to be destroyed, 

 the nests and runs should be sprinkled at inter- 

 vals with water and kerosene at the rate of 

 6 gallons of the former to 1 of the latter. "Water 

 with a twelfth of its bulk of carbolic acid may 

 be used in the same way. Lime that has become 

 broken down by exposure to the air may be 

 scattered freely about their runs and nests in 

 dry places and in dry weather. Nests in grass 

 may be dug up and exposed in frosty weather, 

 preferably about mid-winter, for the sake of the 

 grass. 



Apple Sawfly (Hoplocampa testudinea). — The 

 perfect insect is a four-winged fly about 3 J lines 

 long, and reddish-yellow, with the top of the 

 head, back of the shoulders, and abdomen black. 

 The wings are transparent, with the base of the 



nerves blackish. The female lays an egg in 

 each flower of the Apple in May, and the white 

 or pale-yellow grub penetrates the interior of 

 the fruit, upon which it lives till the end of June 

 or the beginning of July, by which time the 

 fruit is as large as a walnut and drops. The 

 grub then leaves it and pupates in the ground 

 till the following spring. 



Remedies. — As in the case of the Codlin Grub, 

 all fallen fruits should be promptly collected 

 and burned, fed to pigs, or deeply buried in soil 

 before the grubs have time to leave them. 

 Quicklime scattered over the ground beneath 

 badly-infested trees would doubtless destroy 

 many of the grubs escaping from the fruit. A 

 more certain remedy would be to skim off" the 

 surface soil beneath the trees to the depth of 

 some inches, and bury it deeply in trenches 

 between the rows of trees, dressing it heavily 

 with gas-lime at the same time. 



Bean Beetles (Bruchus granarius and B. 

 flacimanus). — The first-named is the most com- 

 mon, and is less than 2 lines in length, black, 



Fig. 91.— Bean Beetles. 



1. Bruchus granarius (natural size). 2. Magnified. 3. Section of infested 

 bean. 4. Maggot (natural size). 5. Enlarged. 6. Pupa (natural size). 

 7. Enlarged. 8. Infested bean germinating. 9. Bruchus flavimanus 

 (natural sizei 10. Enlarged. 11. Infested pea. 4, 5, 6, 7, are common 

 to both species. 



and covered with short, brown hairs. The wing- 

 cases have spots of whitish hairs. The first 

 pair of legs are rusty, the rest black. B. flavi- 

 manus is black, but the head and shoulders are 

 clothed with orange hairs, and the wing-cases 

 with grayish-white hairs. The front legs are 

 bright rusty red, and the others yellowish. The 

 old beetles get bare and nearly black. From 

 May and June till August the females busy 

 themselves laying eggs on the pods of Peas, 



