Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1856-05-23
ANriruItural.
Melon Bugs.


Practical and amateur gardeners
have invented various plans for fore
ing and propagating cucumbers, mel
ons and squashes, in order TO get
them into market or on their tables
early in the season. Some have rec
commended planting the seeds very
early in boxes or pots 10 warm
room in the house, others upon in
verted Gods or in baskets in tho hot
bed all to be turned out in the first
week in May TO run their chances in
becoming food for the yellow bugs.
Very little attention has been paid 10
the destruction of this formidable
enemy to the vine, or 10 the modes
of preventing its attack upon these
tender plants, whether forced into
luxurious growth 10y much labor and
skill, or raised in the ordinary man
Der in the open ground. We some
times hear of tobacco dust, plaster,
ashes and SCOT, being busted upon
the plants as a preventive. Ii is
well known that plaster, ashes and
SCOT, are all excellent fertilizers, and
facilitate the growth Of the plants if
thrown upon the ground contiguous
10 their roots. But if il Is thrown
upon the leaves, it fills up and stops
the pores and clogs the free circula-
ton Of the juices, and prevents the
harmonious workings of Gods nat
ural laws in producing the chemical
changes of the sap in the leaf 10y
contact OF light aud heat of the SIM
and air.
The vine-grower will find by pur-
suing this course, that he checks the
growth of his plants by covering the
upper sariaces of their leaves with
dust Of any kInd, while the under
surfaces are left free, (lhe most vui-
nerable as well as the most inviting
point Of attack by the enemy,) and
that he he has thrown more dust in
his own eyes than he has in the eyes
of the bugs. BY forcing plants into
a premature growth, they are render
ed more tender and more liable to
destruction by these rapcious little in
sccts than those raised in the ordina-
ry way. 1t is "A well authenticated
fact that they will destroy cucumber
plants from the green house or hot
bed, in their third aud fourth rough
leaf; leaving those grown in open
ground that are more hardy entirely
untouched, even ia their first aud
second leaf. II therefore often hap.
pens that the plants intended to pro-
duce fruit for the BIG BuGs," falls
prey TO the insaliate appetite Of the
httle bugs, and the dust theory turns
out TO be a " HUMBUG."
The best and most reliable plan to
protect the young plants is to form a
frame work large enough to protect
a hill and cover it with gauze or net
work sufficiently fine 10 prevent the
bugs from entering, and loose or open
enough to admit the sun and air.
These baskets may be constructed
IN various ways the most convenient
TO those who need them. Willow
twlgs will answer, although wire
frame eight inches square and -four
inches high, covered with thin gauze,
cheap boblnet lace, or mosquito bar
goods is better. Brass or copper
wire-cloth, pressed into a convenient
shape and strongly bound with large
wire, would be the best, as they
would last for years and might be
made useful as safes, to cover over
plates of meat, fish, cheese and other
articles, when not used ia the garden.
f.. J. M'CAUTny. SaugertieS, N. |
Y. Country Gentleman.