116 WILD AND CULTIVATED FLOWERS 
piness of a gardener. Joseph has engaged in a 
war with insects which wdll keep him from idling 
the whole summer. No matter how persistently he 
labours, however, there is no surety that he will 
come off the victor. Bugs and worms have most 
horrid ways. They gnaw" under the skin of young 
plants and greedily eat and stuff themselves with 
the sweet sap. Sometimes no one knows they are 
there until the leaves begin to turn yellow and grad- 
ually fall to the ground. 
This yellow colour of the leaves of a plant dying 
from the effect of insects is to me one of the un- 
sightly things in a garden. Perhaps I feel so about 
it because it indicates sickness. Every day I look 
over my rose-bushes for the little green crawlers 
that think they evade me by being just the colour of 
the leaves. That they might not find life too merry 
in the rosarium, Timothy sprayed the bushes very 
early in the season wdth a solution of whale-oil 
soap. 
We w"elcome lady-bugs in our garden, since they 
go about eating many harmful mites. But between 
us we have only seen four lady-bugs this season, 
and, although Joseph may have them as well as 
the toads and garter-snakes for aides-de-camp, I 
hardly think they will be able to keep the insect 
army at bay. The spraying that Timothy gave 
them about the fifteenth of this month with a kero- 
sene emulsion may prove the greatest hindrance to 
their advance. 
