Roses, but to do the same when they had attacked Rhododen- 
dron flowers in a prominent garden near Philadelphia. I keep 
it on hand, and would not hesitate a fraction of a second about 
putting it in use as soon as the bugs appeared because I believe 
it is the best available remedy for this nasty pest." 
Yours truly, 
J. Horace McFarland. 
An experienced California Gardener who has had great success Snail Trap 
with her Delphinium, tells me that snails are the great enemy 
of this plant in her garden. There are two modes of 
circumventing them. Heaps of sharp white sea-shore saud 
placed all around the plants will keep the snails away as long 
as the sand retains its salty flavor. It has to be occasionally 
replaced after the rains have washed out the salt. A far more 
permanent result is gained by making circular tubes of wire 
fly screening about a foot or 18 inches in diameter and 18 inches 
high ; fasten them securely together with wire and sink them 
three or four inches in the ground entirely surrounding the 
Delphinium plant, then cut the top edge in one inch slashes 
and bend them outwards so they flare. No Gasteropod 
Molusc can get through this feminine device ! 
R. C. W. 
The Autumn Crocus 
(Re-printed By Request) 
Why do not more garden lovers grow Autumn Crocuses? 
These are not to be confused with Colchicums, though I love 
these too, and find them a source of delight with each 
returning September. They are those varieties of the true 
Crocus which are among the latest flowers to blossom in a 
northern garden and whose fragile appearance belies their 
sturdiness of constitution. Crocus zonatus and C. spcciosvs are 
the two which I have found most satisfactory; which is the 
lovelier, who shall say ? I am never sure whether I prefer the 
rosy-lilac transparency'- of the one or the purer blue of its 
sister flower with its exquisite reticulation of darker veins. 
In both flowers, the coloring is rendered more vivid by the 
little plume of cadmium yellow rising from the center of the 
rounded cups which have an almost luminous quality as they 
spring leafless from the dark earth of the garden bed. 
They are wonderfully prolific bloomers, each little bulb 
sending up from ten to twenty flowers, not all at once, but in 
successive groups, and in spite of their apparent delicacy, they 
are prompt, like "truth crushed to earth" to "rise "again" 
after a white frost has annihilated most of their sturdier look- 
115 
