MOW TO DESTROY INSECTS. 



41 



Tlie Verbena Mtisf. 



" I could not grow verbenas at all. Some seasons not 

 more than three or four out of a large bed would live ; 

 at other times all would persist, notwithstanding mj 

 care, in dwindling down into sickly, puny plants, which 

 I could not help feeling were a disgrace to my garden, 

 and have many a time rooted up in sheer despah*, pre- 

 ferring an empty bed (for they generally hung on until 

 it was too late for anything else to take their place) to 

 the sight of so many invalids. The disease known as 

 ' black rust ' was the foe I had to contend with. 



In vain I tried every remedy I would hear of: had 

 new beds cut in virgin soil, as many gardeners advise^ 

 watered with solutions of ammonia, copperas, petro- 

 leum, whale-oil soap, etc. ; at other times had old rotted 

 compost brought from the woods aud duly mixed with 

 sand and well-rotted manure, and when that failed 

 have tried various fertilizers, but with no better suc- 

 cess. Every book of acknowledged merit I could find 

 on floriculture I greedily searched in hopes of finding 

 in it some sokition of my especial difficiilty^ none, 

 however, appeared, and I began to think there must 

 be something in the soil o:* climate of our particular 

 locality against which it was useless for me to strive 

 longer (I had tried plants from a number of different 

 florists, grown both from cuttings and seed), when help 

 came unexpectedly to me from a conversation 1 had 

 held with a friend some years previously on the subject 



