INSECTICIDES, PREVENTIVES, AND MACHINERY. 423 



co-operation of the weather, our results are likely to be uncertain. 

 Nevertheless, there may be great possibiHties in this direction, 

 and in the minute organisms requiring a powerful microscope to 

 make them even visible we may yet find our most effective help 

 in checking destruction by insects. 



CHAPTER II. 



FARM PRACTICE TO PREVENT INSECT ATTACK. 



Throughout this work reference has been frequently made 

 to methods of ordinary farm practice for preventing insect attack. 

 It is desirable to look a little closely into this subject, and to 

 detail somewhat the methods that may be resorted to with good 

 effect. Prevention is always better than cure, and very frequently 

 serious injury may be averted by doing ordinary farm work at 

 just the right time, or in exercising care in the selection of fer- 

 tilizers or in the rotation of crops. 



Far above everything else is cleanliness on the farm, and this 

 term is to be construed as strictly as possible. Cleanliness means 

 clean culture ; the destruction of weeds ; the removal of crop 

 remnants as soon as the crop is done ; picking up and destroy- 

 ing dropped fruit in orchards ; removing, burning up, or other- 

 wise destroying all rubbish that cumbers the ground in winter ; 

 keeping buildings painted or whitewashed in good shape. Allow 

 no rubbish, weeds, or shrubbery to grow among the fences, and 

 in all other respects leave the farm as nearly bare as possible 

 of everything save what strictly belongs there. The object of all 

 this is to do away with possible hiding-places for insects during 

 the winter, and to prevent their reaching maturity during the 

 summer. A large proportion of insects live through the winter 

 in the adult stage, or in the partly grown condition, and a great 

 many of them hide under rubbish. Sometimes they get just a 

 short distance below the surface of the ground among the roots ; 

 sometimes they crawl into crevices of fences, of logs, or of boards, 

 — wherever, in fact, there is the least opening for them to get 



