vi.l 



DISEASES OF FRUIT-TREES. 



2ig 



their workiiigs visible, they ought to be caught without delay ; 

 for, if suffered to get to a head, they do a great deal of mischief, 

 besides the ugliness which they produce. 



300. ANTS. — A very pretty subject for poets, but a most dis- 

 mal one for gardeners ; for it is one of the most mischievous of 

 all things, and most difficult of all to guard against or to destroy. 

 It is mischievous in many ways, and all the sorts of ants are equally 

 mischievous. Those which have their nests in little hillocks on 

 the ground ; that is to say, the small ant, is the sort which most 

 frequently display their mischievous industry in the gardens. I 

 once had a melon-bed that underwent a regular attack from the 

 community of horse-ants, as the country people call them ; that 

 is, the largest ant that we know anything of. I know nothing 

 but fire or boiling water, or squeezing to death, that will destroy 

 ants ,• and if you pour boiling water on their nests in the grass, 

 you destroy the grass ; set fire to a nest of the great ants, and you 

 burn up the hedge or the trees, or whatever else is in the neigh- 

 bourhood. As to squeezing them to death, they are amongst the 

 twigs and roots of your trees and plants ; they are in the blossoms, 

 and creeping all about the fruit ; so that, to destroy them in this 

 w-ay, you must destroy that also which you wish to protect against 

 their depredations. Ants injure everything that they touch ; but 

 they are particularly mischievous with regard to wall- trees : where 

 they attack successively bud, blossom, leaf, and fruit. There is 

 no method of keeping them from the wall. They may be kept 

 from mounting espaliers by putting tar round the stem of the tree, 

 and round the stakes that the limbs are tied to ; but there is no 

 keeping them from the waU, unless by killing them. Mr. Forsyth 

 recommended to make the ground very smooth near the bottom of 

 the tree that they attacked ; then to make smooth holes with a 

 sharp-pointed stake or iron bar, down into which, as he says, they 

 will go ; and then he recommends to pour water into these holes, 

 and drown them. Monsieur de Comble recommends the laying 

 of sheep's trotters or cow-heels with the skin on, near the attacked 

 tree, and, when these be well covered with ants, to plunge 

 them into a bucket of water, drown the ants, then put the sheep's 

 trotters near the tree again to wait for another cargo. By these 

 means something may be done, to be sure ; but, the true way is 

 to find out the nest from which they come ; for they are extreme y 

 scrupulous in this respect ; it is only one tribe that makes its 



