SLUG. 
matter, and where a snail has been killed by 
crushing, its remains attract numbers to feed on 
it. 
To destroy snails in gardens, the only effec- 
tual mode is hand-picking, either in the evening 
or early in the morning, or immediately after 
rain. Empty flower-pots, reversed and distri- 
buted over the surface, if an opening is left on 
the side, by making a small depression in the 
soil, will attract a great number of snails; and 
the more so, if some greased cabbage leaves be 
placed under the pots. In the course of the 
autumn, winter, and early in the spring, all 
their hiding-places should be searched, and the 
animals taken out and destroyed by crushing 
or by giving them to swine, which are said to be 
very fond of them. Hedgehogs and weasels, 
being their natural enemies, may be kept in gar- 
dens; and poultry which do not scratch, such 
as turkeys, ducks, &c., may be admitted occa- 
sionally; though no mode of subduing the snail 
but hand-picking is to be depended on. 
Slugs in gardens are destroyed with less la- 
bour than snails; because, their bodies being 
comparatively unprotected, they are liable to be 
operated on by any caustic or bitter liquid as 
readily as worms. Cabbage leaves in a state of 
incipient decay, with the side which is to be 
placed next the soil rubbed over with greasy 
matter of any kind, or even with the bruised 
bodies of recently killed slugs, distributed over 
any surface, will attract them in great numbers 
during the nights; and if the blades are exa- 
mined every morning, and the slugs which are 
found destroyed, the piece of ground so treated 
will soon be freed from them. Pea haulm being 
very sweet when in a state of incipient decay, 
forms a powerful attraction to slugs; and if 
handfuls of it are distributed over a piece of 
ground in the same manner as cabbage leaves, 
the little heaps of haulm may be examined every 
morning, and the slugs shaken from them, and 
then destroyed by watering with lime-water. 
Thin slices of turnips or potatoes, placed under 
inverted empty flower-pots, form an excellent 
attraction, as do the dead bodies of slugs them- 
selves, some parts or the whole of which are 
greedily devoured by the living animals. Where 
slugs are very abundant in a soil not covered 
with plants so large as to shelter them, as for 
example with rising seeds, the slugs may be de- 
stroyed by watering the soil thoroughly with 
lime-water or tobacco-water, late in the evening 
or early in the morning. Abundance of water 
should be applied, in order that it may sink into 
the soil, which the slugs penetrate one foot or 
more in depth, according to its state of pulveri- 
zation. Quicklime has been laid round plants 
to protect them from snails and slugs, but it 
soon becomes mild, and of no use as a protection. 
Coal ashes and sawdust annoy slugs by sticking 
to their feet ; but they will not be deterred by 
239 
want of food. Soot is also a great annoyance to 
slugs; but, to keep them from a plant, it re- 
quires to be frequently and liberally renewed. 
“ A stout, coarse, horse-hair line, such as is used 
for hanging clothes out to dry, coiled round the 
stems of wall-fruit trees, and stretched along the 
wall will operate as a protection to the fruits 
from both snails and slugs, in consequence of the 
bristly surface presented to them, and which 
they shrink from encountering. Care must, of 
course, be taken that they do not get under it.” 
No gardener ought to rest content with merely 
protecting his plants or fruits from snails or 
slugs; because, while they are in the garden, as 
they must live, if they are debarred from attack- 
ing one plant, they will only have recourse to 
another. Nothing short of extermination, there- 
fore, ought to satisfy him; and this he may ac- 
complish by enticing the larger slugs into empty 
pots, or under cabbage leaves or haulm, and by 
soaking thoroughly with lime-water the soil which 
he supposes to contain young slugs or eggs. 
The destroying of slugs in fields may be effected 
by widely different means, and ought, in each 
particular case, to be attempted by whatever one 
of these may be most economical in itself and 
most suitable to the kind and condition of the 
crop. A good powdering of quicklime on turnips 
and some other crops, in places where lime is 
cheap and has not already been over-applied, is 
a very ready and perfectly efficient means, An 
aspersion with lime-water, especially after night- 
fall, may be eminently suitable in the case of 
some kinds and conditions of crop where quick- 
lime might do harm. A sprinkling of tar-water 
or of the liquid refuse of gas-works Is also effec- 
tive. The turning in of a large flock of geese, 
ducks, or other similar feeding fowl is, in some 
circumstances, the easiest and cheapest method. 
And an application of common salt may be hope- 
fully made in almost any case, or as a pretty 
sure resource when any less expensive means is 
unsuitable or cannot be obtained. 
To prevent the appearance of slugs, however, 
is far better than to destroy them; and may, in 
general, be more or less certainly effected by the 
easy expedient of early ploughing. “ It would 
be of some importance,” says an intelligent pro- 
vincial writer, “to know whether the slugs which 
injure the corn arise chiefly from between the 
furrow slices in the corn field, or whether they 
chiefly come from the neighbouring grass fields 
to the corn. The fact that slugs, as far as I 
know, never injure corn after fallow, but always 
after lea or clover, seems to favour the former 
supposition; but the injury done in gardens by 
them, where they must come chiefly from with- 
out, seems to favour the second hypothesis. The 
most important indisputable fact is, that they 
injure only the tenderest blades. After warm 
and showery weather in May has caused a rapid 
growth, the corn blades are very tender, and the 
this annoyance so effectually as to starve for , slug finds them a pleasant food. The tenderness 
