could tell any poor gardener) with the care of the parent. Take 
Slugs the slug, for instance. The best way to fight that undesirable 
member of society is to hunt for it in October and November 
when it is ready to lay its eggs and destroy it, as every one 
thus "taken care of" then, means 20 or 30 little pests less to be 
fed in the night nurseries of our garden in the spring. So rake 
up every leaf and gather in every slug and you may rival the 
good hunting of the lady from New Hampshire who sometimes 
filled a five-pound lard can half full in one day! She also 
gathered up hundreds of slugs by another method of social 
control. At four o'clock in the afternoon she would sprinkle 
around her garden a greyish white powder known as the Ster- 
lingworth Cut-Worm Food, and when setting out young plants 
she protected them from the assault of the evil ones in this 
same way. This same moral food will also deal a body-blow to 
the "cussed cut-worm." The Garden Magazine gives a receipt 
that can be made at home. 
Cut Worm "One pound of wheat bran or cornmeal, one ounce of white 
arsenate or Paris Green, one-half cup of molasses, juice of half 
a lemon and two pints of water. Distribute in small particles 
where wanted." 
Field Mice If one is troubled with field mice in the manure placed as 
a winter covering on roses, it is a good plan to place several 
small handfuls of poisoned grain on each bed. Dissolve one 
ounce of strychnine or cyanide of potassium in one gallon of 
water and soak wheat in this solution for twelve hours. The 
advocate of this method says that when his beds were uncovered 
in the spring, the mice were found in twos or threes at almost 
every handful of grain. Only three canes were found to be 
damaged out of 3200 plants. 
Ants and Whenever you notice ants working about a plant, you may 
Aphis be sure that they are preparing a nest for their milch cows, the 
aphis. One can destroy the ants by spraying the hill with one 
ounce of cyanide of potassium dissolved in one gallon of water. 
Dip bread in the solution and cover it with boards and the ants 
will carry it to their young, thus destroying the whole nest. The 
root of the Aster is often affected with a louse, a greyish white 
aphis which is called by one sufferer (who has looked it up, 
the "ground or blue" aphis. The remedies are many — wood 
ashes at the root; water the plants with nicotine solution (2 
tablespoonsfuls to one gallon of water) treat the whole bed with 
flowers of sulphur, rake it in after spading and when you have 
finished, water; or when sowing the seed, work hydrated lime 
into the soil and again when you transplant. This is the fine 
powdered lime that plasterers use and can be purchased at the 
hardware store. This treatment must be kept up each year. 
Blight In speaking of the various plant afflictions, it would be well 
to get into the habit of using the term "blight" for bacterial 
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