HOUSE AND GARDEN 
May, 191 
39i 
P LANT life is much like human life — 
food and water must be supplied to 
maintain it, and sufficient artificial means 
of combating those things which prey upon 
it must be employed. There is, however, 
this important difference, that while many 
of the ills which flesh is heir to run their 
course and disappear naturally, almost 
every plant trouble will prove absolutely 
fatal unless the gardener uses some means 
of counteracting it. Furthermore the plant 
is absolutely unable to defend itself, and 
you as the gardener and also the doctor 
are responsible in the majority of cases for 
any fatalities occuring among the plants 
under your care. 
So far the most effective method of 
treating plant ills, either insects or diseases, 
has been the use of spraying. And a series 
of inexpensive and effective remedies have 
been developed with which, if properly 
used, the gardener may successfully fight 
most of the troubles of the sorts which he 
is apt to encounter. It should be em¬ 
phasized from the start that success will 
depend almost wholly upon just how 
seriously you take those three words. The 
first law in spraying, if you want satisfactory results, is timeliness ; 
the second is thoroughness. You have got to do the work on time 
and do it thoroughly or you might better save yourself the time 
and trouble involved and trust to luck, as so far no Christian 
Science method of treating squash bugs has been discovered. 
And, furthermore, you must make the punishment fit the 
criminal, not the crime; you cannot reform a squash bug by feed¬ 
ing him Paris green nor produce any effect on a potato bug by 
spraying him with Bordeaux mixture except possibly to soil 
slightly his handsome outing costume. In other words, some 
insects suck the juices from the interior of the plant, and against 
them poison applied to the surface is of course ineffective. Those 
which eat the leaves, such as the caterpillars and most of the bugs 
and beetles may be influenced for the better by such things as 
lead arsenate and Paris green — but at the same time one does not 
care to carry this reform as far as the family table, and therefore 
such things cannot always be employed, even for the insects 
against which they would otherwise be effective. 
Do not, however, be alarmed at the amount of data which 
may appear at first glance to be in the accompanying table. Not 
all of these friends will visit you every season, and even for those 
against which you 
must guard the 
bill of fare need 
not necessarily be 
very varied. 
Your outfit, 
furthermore, does 
not have to be a 
very elaborate 
one, considering 
the amount of 
work you will be 
able to do with it. 
First and fore¬ 
most, of course, 
you need a good 
spraying appara¬ 
tus of sufficient 
capacity to take 
The compressed air sprayer is charged with 
a few strokes of the plunger, hung from 
the shoulder by a strap, and is ready for use 
Aphides infest the underneath side of the leaf in 
colonies of white specks 
care of the work you are likely to have 
for it to do. It may range from a brass 
florist’s syringe to a power orchard pump. 
For the average small place, however, for 
use in connection with coldframes, hot¬ 
beds and the small greenhouse- — if there 
is one — and in the vegetable and flower 
garden and for a few fruit trees, the best 
type that I know of is the cylindrical, com¬ 
pressed air sprayer. Those made of brass 
cost a little more than the others in all the 
various types, but by all means get one, be¬ 
cause with proper care it will last in¬ 
definitely, while a cheaper grade goes to 
pieces very quickly under the action of the 
erosive mixtures which have to be used in 
it. And if you have any trees or grape¬ 
vines which will require attention get also 
an extension rod and a guose neck and 
spray nozzle. Stock solutions or material 
for making the following if kept on hand 
and used in time will answer practically 
every purpose. The mixtures themselves 
or materials for making them are all easily 
obtained and not expensive—arsenate of 
lead, kerosene emulsion, tobacco or nico¬ 
tine extract, and Bordeaux mixture, and 
more convenient, especially when mixing up a small quantity in 
a hurry, one of the prepared insecticides such as Aphine or 
Tobaccine. All of these should be properly labeled and kept with 
the spraying apparatus in a place where they will be safe from 
children and where you may find at any time what you require 
for instant use. 
A small sprayer of the type suggested above will be useful for 
so many purposes and during such a large part of the year that 
you should not think of trying to get along without one. You will 
require its services in the management of your house-plants andl 
in the flower garden, in the vegetable garden, for your small fruits 
and for your few but highly prized fruit trees. 
When one mentions spraying plants in the house you probably 
begin to wonder if it would be a good thing for the background 
of modern wall-paper. Many of these I maintain would be 
benefited by a spray treatment, but nevertheless it is possible to 
confine it to the plants themselves by placing them in the sink or 
tub, or upon several sheets of newspaper on the floor. If you 
can’t put the spray on the plants, you can dip the plants in the 
spray: immerse them for a few seconds and then, after they have 
dried a bit, dip them in water to remove the corpses. 
The three pests 
most troublesome 
in the house are 
aphides, mealy¬ 
bug and scale. A 
good thing to use 
against all three 
of these is 
Aphine, a pleas¬ 
ant-smelling com¬ 
pound containing 
a very minute per¬ 
centage of nico¬ 
tine, and cedar 
and pine oils. 
This and similar 
remedies kill by 
(Continued on 
page 419) 
Their presence is discoverable by a shiny, oily 
appearance on the leaf surface 
