A Victorious Campaign Against the Insects— By e. l. Fullerton 



SPRAYING OUTFITS FOR HOME GARDENS— WHOLESALE METHODS OF DESTROYING INSECTS— THE RASCALS 

 THAT NEED SPECIAL TREATMENT— FORMULAS FOR THE STANDARD INSECTICIDES AND FUNGICIDES 



Photographs by the author 



Long 

 Island 



HOW a plant can survive nowadays is a 

 mystery, for almost every one has some 

 special enemy or enemies; in fact, their name 

 is legion. There are biters, borers, suckers 

 and cutters; there are mildew, rust, blight 

 and scab. While there are wholesale 

 methods of destroying most of them, there 

 are about two dozen "critters" that have to 

 be known by sight and fought by special 



94. Tobacco for certain sucKing insects. Powdered 

 and blown on stems or steeped and sDrayed 



methods. All insects may be divided into 

 two classes, the biters and the suckers. The 

 way to get rid of the pests that bite and chew 

 is to poison their food, but the fellows that 

 suck the juices and pay no attention 

 whatever to poison on the outside sur- 

 face of a plant have to be met and slain 

 in open battle. 



HOW TO SEND THE FLEA-BEETLE FLYING- 



In the spring, the very first chance we get, 

 we sow lettuce and radish seed, and then 

 "sit up nights" to see the seedlings appear. 

 Oh, joy! the ground is cracking, and, joy 

 again, the tiny seed-leaves appear. Aren't 

 they strong and lusty? Did we ever have 

 any quite so promising before ? Surely noth- 

 ing can happen to them; we made their bed 

 so soft and deep and gave them so much to 

 eat. Then "woe is me," some morning we 

 go out to look at them before breakfast and 

 they are lacework — just riddled with tiny 

 holes as though the fairies had been having 

 target-practice or a schutzen-fest during the 

 night. We look closely, and find tiny black 

 creatures all over them ; a touch on the leaves 

 and they jump away — the black flea-beetle 

 has arrived. What shall we do? "Poison 

 the leaves," they say, but I hate to do it. I 

 am always afraid the leaves might not be 

 thoroughly washed before they are served at 

 the table. Still it must be done. There are 

 two things that the experts tell us to do to rid 

 the plant of them — spray with Bordeaux 

 mixture, or dust with powdered tobacco. 

 Some there are who compound a decoction 

 of both. Last year I dusted our plants with 

 fine coal ashes in the early morning when the 

 dew was on the leaves, and sent these crea- 

 tures flying. Dusting with air-slacked lime, 



land plaster or Paris green and flour are 

 other methods used successfully. 



ROUTING THE POTATO BEETLE 



Then there is the potato bug — also called 

 the Colorado beetle — (I wish they would keep 

 her home). Every one knows and loathes 

 her. She is soft when she is new, and hard 

 when she is old; she chews the leaves, there- 

 fore she must be poisoned. Use Paris green 

 or an arsenical poison, but if you have little 

 ones who might possibly taste this "sugar," 

 as the small mind might conceive it, pick the 

 bugs by hand, and there will be no danger. 

 If you don't want to touch these creatures, 

 and I don't know any one who particularly 

 craves the task, take a can of kerosene in the 

 left hand, place it under the bug, and push 

 her into it with a stick, a shingle, or a stiff 

 flat paint brush. In this illuminating oil she 

 quickly expires. 



You can do the same thing with the 

 squash bug and striped beetle that love 

 melons and cucumbers, only they must be 

 killed outright, and are if you use a poison. 

 Kerosene emulsion and whale-oil soap, how- 

 ever, are the best things to stop them in their 

 mad career. Neither of these is poisonous, 

 so you can use them without fear of harm, 

 to investigating wee ones. 



DO YOU KNOW THE CUTWORM? 



Do you know how it feels to go into the 

 garden of a bright summer's morning and 

 find a lot of your plants lying prone on the 

 ground? Mr. Cutworm came around last 

 night. He must think he is Father Time 

 with his scythe looking for some mowing to 

 do. He is a coward, for he works out of 

 sight just under the surface, not in the open, 

 and only at night at that, when good, God- 

 fearing folk are asleep in their beds. If you 

 dig around the roots of the plant you may 

 find him and you may not ; if you do discover 

 him, just remember that he is a brownish 

 fellow, with stripes or bands, and is rather 

 fat for his length of one and one-fourth to 

 one and three-fourths inches, and he has a 

 neat little pair of pruning-shears attached to 

 his head. If you don't find him, put poison 

 bait about near the stems of the plants. Dip 

 some clover into Paris green and water, 

 or make a dough of Paris green and bran 

 and sprinkle that around. Mr. Cutworm's 

 mother is a night-flying moth (you see, the 

 entire family belong to a disreputable gang 

 and keep late hours), and she may be caught 

 by placing a lighted torch or lantern on a 

 brick in the center of a tub of water which 

 has kerosene floating on the surface. Her 

 ladyship is attracted by the light (perhaps 

 she wants to see whether her bonnet is on 

 straight or whether her gown is becoming), 

 and flies straight into trie light, becomes 

 stunned, falls into the tub, and finds a watery 

 (or oily) grave. The old-fashioned way to 

 catch this gentleman (her ladyship's son) 



68 



was to put stones or chips near the young 

 plants and lift them in the early morning. 

 He is accustomed to hide away in just such 

 places to take his daytime sleep. I needn't 

 tell you what to do when you find him. 



ENEMIES OF SQUASH AND OTHER VINES 



There is a little fellow striped with yellow 

 and black (I don't know whether he is partial 

 to Princeton or not) that dotes on squashes, 

 cucumbers and melons when the vines are 

 young and tender. He eats both foliage and 

 stems. Spray the vines with Paris green 

 and water, or dust with Paris green mixed 

 with flour, road dust or land plaster. The 

 plants may be protected by a mosquito- 

 netting tent, but I think few of us would go 

 to the trouble of constructing tents unless we 

 were extremely fond of those particular vege- 

 tables which attract this annoying creature. 



The squash-vine borer is a sly fellow. He 

 creeps inside the stems of melon, cucumber 

 and squash vines and eats the heart out of 

 them. If your vines wither and die as a 

 result of their feasting, the best thing to do is 

 to burn the vines at once. This heads off 

 next year's crop of borers. If you catch 

 the vines just beginning to wither, cut out 

 the borer, who is whitish and about one inch 

 long, and has a brown head. After destroy- 

 ing the enemy cover several joints of the 

 vine with earth so that new roots will form 

 at these points. This gives the plant a bet- 

 ter chance to recover. 



When I say "squash bug," don't you say 

 "Ugh!" I doubt if she has any friends. 

 The yellow eggs are laid on the under side 

 of the leaves. The youngsters are called 

 nymphs and they suck the sap of the leaves, 

 often causing the entire plant to wilt. This 

 chap when grown up wears a rusty black 

 coat, with a yellow vest, and he doesn't smell 

 good if you touch him. They say hand- 

 picking morning and evening, when the bugs 

 are drowsy, is the best remedy. Or you can 

 place boards on the ground around the plant 

 and many of them will be found underneath 

 in the morning. I leave the squash bugs to 

 the other member of our gardening com- 



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95. Put chips or stones near the plants. Cut- 

 worms will hide under them in the night, and can 

 easily be exterminated early in the morning 



