46 



SCIENCE OP GARDENING. 



eggs of the latter may often be found glued to the 

 branches of fruit-trees, and should be diligently looked 

 after. Soot and lime in the soil will be a good safe- 

 guard against many insects that exist in the ground, as 

 they will, if freely applied over the surface, with slugs 

 and snails. These last may also be trapped by laying 

 about any fresh leaves in the garden, and examining them 

 every night and morning. Worms that burrow on lawns 

 or paths, disfiguring and making them dirty, may be 

 destroyed by the use of lime-water, poured through the 

 rose of a watering-pot. 



Ducks will sometimes do a good deal of good, if allowed 

 the run of a garden, by picking up slugs and snails. 

 Birds likewise devour a great number of insects; but 

 sparrows, chaflB.nches, and tomtits do little but mischief. 

 Fowls are exceedingly injurious in a garden, and should 

 never be admitted ; while cats ought to be kept out as 

 much as possible. Mice are pretty easily trapped ; but 

 rats, when once they get possession of a place, can only 

 be taken by poison, very artfully and carefully laid for 

 them, after they have been frequently enticed by the 

 food in which it is at length administered. Rabbits, 

 which increase prodigiously, and are highly destructive, 

 can either be kept out with a close fence, or snared by 

 setting wire gins in their runs, or taken in the holes by 

 ferrets, or shot. They will require, when they have once 

 obtained a lodgment in a place, to have the most constant 

 war waged against them. 



As with most other things, the remedy for these ills 

 will generally be found easier than the cure. Taking a 

 female wasp in spring, just before she has brought forth 

 her teeming brood of young ones, will prevent the inroads 

 of hundreds of wasps subsequently. Destroying a nest of 

 young rabbits, which is easy, will be as good as catching 

 an equal number of old ones, which is extremely difficult. 

 Searching out for the eggs deposited by different insects, 

 and crushing them, will keep away myriads of these 

 annoying pests. And a complete visitation of rats may 

 be warded off by daubing with gas tar the holes through 

 which the first pioneer of the troop enters, and otherwise 

 rendering his quart ei^s displeasing and intolerable. 



