CHAPTER XIV PLANT ENEMIES AND INSECTICIDES

The well-tended garden does not suffer materially from inroads of insect pests especially in favorable seasons; cool, damp weather, and hot, muggy weather are conducive to fungoid diseases which sap the strength of the plants and make them less resistant to any kind of assaults, whether of insects or disease, but with normal weather and bright dry air a part of each day at least, little trouble should be experienced from insect pests; especially should this be the case if precautionary work has been done the previous fall in the way of gathering up and burning all rubbish that can harbor insects or disease and especially if the precaution is taken to fall plough the garden, leaving the soil in the rough furrow over winter. This is especially good practice when there has been trouble with209 insect pests, especially cutworms, root lice, tomato worms—the pupae of which winter in the ground and if turned up by the plough will be destroyed, radish and cabbage maggot and the like.

Even though the past season has been practically free from trouble of this sort the intelligent gardener will recognize the possibility of trouble and in time of peace will prepare for war by supplying himself with the more common and useful varieties of insecticides. It is not desirable that the list should include everything in the bug pharmacop?ia; a few standard remedies faithfully and intelligently used are far better than an embarrassing assortment that leaves one undecided as to which is best and often results in half-hearted use of first one and then the other, with lax intervals which give the enemy time to recuperate and multiply.

It is best in deciding upon the insecticides and fungicides to be used to have a clear classification in mind of the several kinds of insect to be exterminated as one form of poison may not be suited to all forms of insect life: for instance, insects210 which chew or eat the leaves of the plants to which they are addicted, as the potato beetle, caterpillar and the like, can most readily be destroyed by poison applied to the foliage; insects which do not eat the vegetation on the surface, but puncture it and drain away by suction the juices of the plant, like the aphis and other plant lice, will not be injured by surface poison, but must be destroyed by the contact of corrosive poison with their bodies, or with hot water, which is one of the best insecticides known, not only destroying all insect life with which it comes in contact, but cleansing and strengthening the plants. It should be used as a spray at about a hundred and forty degrees, taking pains to reach the underside of the leaves as well as the upper surface, and as it can be used when the fruit is in any stage of growth its advantage is obvious.

For the eating or chewing insects and beetles there are several reliable poisons on the market, all ready for use, needing only to be mixed with a definite bulk of water, flour or lime, according as the poison is to be used as a dust or a spray.

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ARSENATE OF LEAD

Used for all chewing insects that attack foliage and fruit trees; will not wash off nor burn the foliage. Use two or three pounds to fifty gallons of water as a spray. Price about forty-five cents a pound.

ARSENATE OF ZINC

A quick-acting adhesive insecticide for potato bugs, rose beetles and vegetables that have not headed sufficiently to be injurious if touched with the poison. Forty-five cents per pound.

BUG DEATH

Used instead of Paris green for eating insects on potatoes, squashes, melons, eggplants, cucumbers. Twenty-five cents a pound; directions accompany it.

PARIS GREEN

For all chewing insects. As a dust use one part of the poison to one hundred parts plaster, or flour; as a spray, one pound Paris green to212 one hundred and fifty to three hundred gallons of water according to the tenderness of the foliage. Sixty-five cents per pound.

PYROX

For eating insects, fungus growth, blight and rot. Adheres to foliage. One pound to six gallons of water. Forty cents per pound.

SLUG SHOT

For potato bugs, tomato and cabbage worms, lice aphis and worms—use as dust with blow gun. Twenty cents a pound.

For fungoid diseases, blight and rot the various Bordeaux mixtures, single and combined with the arsenates so as to take the place of a separate poison for chewing insects, are suggested.

BORDEAUX MIXTURE

The standard remedy against fungus, rust and rot. Five ounces to one gallon of water is standard strength. Spray at intervals until fruits sets, for potatoes till danger of late blight is passed. Thirty-five cents a pound.

213

BORDEAUX-ARSENATE OF LEAD

A combined fungicide and insecticide for potatoes, melons, cucumbers and squash. Three ounces to one gallon of water. Spray once a week or every ten days. Forty cents per pound.

KEROSENE EMULSION

For all soft-bodied, sucking insects, especially aphis and lice. One pound of paste to ten gallons of water. Paste, thirty cents a pound.

Directions for Preparing

KEROSENE EMULSION

Dissolve one-half pound of soap in one gallon of boiling water, add two gallons of kerosene, and force through a spray pump again and again until an emulsion is formed. Dilute from ten to twenty-five times before applying. Use rain-water for making solution.

BORDEAUX-ARSENATE OF LEAD

One pound of arsenate of lead with fifty gallons of Bordeaux mixture for all eating insects and fungoid diseases.

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BORDEAUX MIXTURE

Dissolve six pounds of copper sulphate by hanging it in a bag of coarse cloth in an earthen or wooden vessel containing four to six gallons of water, and dilute with twenty-five gallons of water. Slake four pounds of lime, diluting to twenty-five gallons and mix by pouring the two solutions into a third vessel. This is of such universal use that the large quantity will not be excessive, especially when combined with the arsenical preparations.

Vegetables and Insects and Diseases
Attacking Them

ASPARAGUS

Keep the beds closely cut in spring and as soon as the shoots are allowed to grow spray with Bordeaux-arsenate of lead mixture.

BEANS-ANTHRACNOSE

Spray with Bordeaux mixture when an inch or two high and repeat as necessary.

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BEAN BEETLE

Spray with kerosene emulsion, being sure that it reaches every part of the under side of the leaves.

BEAN WEEVIL

Fumigate the seed before planting with carbon-bisulphide, in a closed vessel for twenty-four hours or with formaldehyde, using one teaspoonful to a pint of water and wetting the seed and covering close a few hours.

FLEA BEETLE

Spray with arsenate of lead or Bordeaux-arsenate mixture.

BEET-LEAF SPOT

Spray with Bordeaux mixture and repeat once in two weeks but the leaves must not be used for greens after spraying begins.

CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER

Aphis: spray with kerosene emulsion and repeat as needful until the heads are nearly grown.

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CABBAGE WORM

Spray with poisoned resin-lime mixture if the plants are young; after heads have formed use kerosene emulsion or hot water, preferably the latter.

CABBAGE ROOT MAGGOT

Protect the plants with disks of tar paper and wet the soil with Paris green solution or emulsion composed of one pound of soap, one gallon of boiling water and one pint of crude carbolic acid diluted with forty parts of water, using sufficient to soak the soil several inches.

CELERY BLIGHT

Spray with Bordeaux mixture once in two weeks, until plants are half grown.

CUCUMBERS

For the striped beetle, use tobacco dust about the hills. Spray plants and ground with kerosene emulsion. Wrap rags saturated with kerosene about sticks and stick in center of hills to repel bugs with the odor. Better still, protect217 hills with frames of wire screening or mosquito netting. Spray with Bordeaux-arsenate of lead every two weeks.

SQUASH BUG

Hand pick the first bugs that appear and find and destroy all eggs. Dust with Bug Death. Protect with wire cloth.

BLIGHT

Leaves become spotted or covered with down. Spray every two weeks with Bordeaux mixture.

ONIONS

Blight.—Spray every ten days with two-thirds strength Bordeaux mixture. Root lice.—Open trench along side the plants and apply salt freely.

PEAS—APHIS

Spray with kerosene emulsion until pods are filling; then spray with hot water.

PEAS—MILDEW

Spray with Bordeaux mixture containing resin wash to make it stick, or with Pyrox.

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POTATO—COLORADO BEETLE

Hand pick to destroy eggs. If young appear spray or dust with Paris green or Pyrox and repeat as often as necessary.

FLEA BEETLE

Keep plants well covered with Bordeaux mixture or Pyrox.

SCAB

Do not plant on freshly manured land, should be manured in fall or February at latest. Soak seed in formaldehyde before planting and dip each piece in sulphur.

SQUASH BORER

Slit infested stem and destroy worm and cover injured branch with earth or stone.

SQUASH BUGS

Use tobacco stems freely about hills. Spray with hot water very early in morning.

TOMATO

For leaf-blight.—Spray with Bordeaux mixture every ten days.

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TOMATO WORMS

Pick worms, gather eggs and spray with Paris green or Pyrox. Do not use poison after the fruit is set. Fall-plough the tomato lot to rid the soil of the chrysalids of the worm.

CAUTION

In nearly all cases of surface infestation of plants, the insects can be destroyed with clear hot water, hot soapsuds of either whale oil soap or ivory soap or kerosene emulsion and this should be the first resort, using poison solutions only when the former fail to give relief.

Bordeaux mixture is so generally indicated for all diseases of foliage and kerosene for so large a number of insects that it pays to prepare these at home in the large quantities and have them always on hand. The kerosene sometimes "goes back" and needs to be forced with the pump into a fresh emulsion.