2'20 



FRUITS. 



[chap. 



attack upon one and the same object. If you look attentively, 

 you will find that, in the morning, very early, they all come in the 

 same direction, and that they go in exactly the same way back 

 at night. Trace them to their fortress ; and, when it is quite 

 night, treat them to a bucket of water that is as nearly upon the 

 boil as possible. You kill the whole tribe. When my melon- 

 beds were attacked by the horse-ants, I set to work to discover 

 whence they came. I traced them along a brick wall. Then out 

 of the garden between the door-frame and the wall. Then along 

 at the bottom of the edge of the wall on the side of a lawn ; then, 

 after having made an angle along the wall, going, as I thought, 

 over it into a meadow on the other side. Every corner of hedge 

 and ditch of that meadow was examined to discover the nest, 

 but in vain. Looking back to the spot where I thought they 

 went over the wall, we discovered that they turned along the top 

 ot the wall, and went under the roof of a summer-house that was 

 ceiled below : having lifted up a tile, there we saw bushels of 

 ants with little sticks and straws, the result of years of their de- 

 testable industry. A copper of water was made to boil against the 

 evening. It was taken to the spot in a boiling state as nearly as 

 possible ; everything was prepared for the purpose, and by mid- 

 night, scarcely a handful of them were left alive ; and my melon- 

 bed, which I was actually upon the point of giving up as lost, was 

 suifered to proceed unmolested. The greatest care, therefore, 

 ought to be taken, especially if grass ground be near the garden, 

 to hunt out ants' nests, and to destroy them. 



301. SPIDER. — I do not know that the common spider does 

 any harm to the gardener, and I know that it frequently does good 

 by killing the flies ; but there is a red spider which is very mis- 

 chievous to vines, especially when under glass. If attended to, 

 however, they are easily destroyed, and the destruction of them 

 should not be neglected. Plentifully washing of the trees with 

 water is the great remedy, and, in hot-houses, syringes are made 

 use of for this purpose. . 



302. CATERPILLAR. — Very few more mischievous creatures 

 than this infest the gardens. In the first place, it is a most de- 

 structive enemy of fruit-trees ; apples, pears, plums, quinces, 

 medlais, and gooseberries, but particularly apples and plums are 

 literally flayed alive by this nasty insect. Hundreds of trees to 

 gether are, early in the month of June, very frequently completely 



