The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-25
PLANT MOSQUITO KILLER.
Yet Time to Sow the Deadly Phu-lo
 Seed,

Seed.
 Baron de Taillac of Long Island City,
 who introducted the phulo plant from
 the Tonquin country, in China, sends
 the following to the New York Herald as to how to propagate the plant de- scribed. He says the phul-lo seed must be sown in well prepared ground in the spring or autumn months. If sown in spring, the plant will attain its full growth by September, and be ready for fall businesss. If sown in autumn, the phul-lo will be in full power early next season, when the mosquitoes begin
 singing national anthems, fresh from
 the Jersey marshes. When the plants
 are large enough for transplanting,
 they should be put in rows, one yard or more apart. but never less than that space. During the hot months 1t should
 be explained that the plant thrives in a half-shaded location. Sush spot is preferable to the heat and glare of an open field Fall planting does not in- jure the shrub, for it is hardy enough to withstand frost, and although the. leaves and stalk may be destroyed, the roots will sprout next year. The plant is generated from small black seeds, which are similar in size and color to onion seed. Besides raising from the seed, plants may be reproduced from suckers or sprouts snringing from the bosom of the mother plant The little baby phu-lo which is so dreaded by the boidest and most voracious of the mos-. quitoes of the Jersey jungies, grows easily and nlultiplies abundantly when properly watered and cultivated.
 In its youth the plant is between a tobacco plant and mullen. It is soft. green and spongy, yet bristling with coat of hairy down, that must seem to the mosquitoes like a thicket of barbed wire fences with which no wise or well- bred mosquito would attempt to fool. Being perennial plant, 1t generates few seeds, but this is made up by the multipicity of sprouts that shoot from It's roots. But the virtues of this wonderful plant which Baron de Taillac has imported from China are not con- -ned to the ravages it creates among the mosquitoes. After doing inesti- mable service during the long hot months. when the mosquitoes are hun gry and greedy, the plant may be used still further in the service of men as a fodder for cattle. Like the marvellous alfalfa plant known to the Creeks and Romans. and now blooming green and beautiful in the deserts of Nevada and Colorado, it may be cut four times year, furnishing abundant nutriment and succulent satisfaction to the most fastidious COW or steer. It is a good beef-maker, and is said to impart a delicate flavor to those choice cuts which bring top prices in the swell res- taurents of the town. Thus it will be seen that this humble plant, which an uneducated boy might take for a null len. will work revolution in the agri- cultural and mosquito economies of summer watering places.
 It Is absurd to imagine that there's any place on this earth except in the heart of a living volcano where mos- quitees are not present. It has been proved by the most authentic travellers that the little birds with wasp stings in their tails flourish nightly among the higher attitudes of the Rocky moun- tains, where the alder thickets are filled with their music. They were also a great hindrance to explorations in the midnight regions of the Arctic circle and in the Klondike country they are the chief terror of the gold miner. So this little insect is a universal habitant of the round earth, from the tropics to he polar regions where neither heat or icy blizzards seem to exterminate them. What the little fiends live on in the Arctic no one knows. They certainly have few people to bite and the ice- bergs are more numerous than the in- so 1t must be that they are simply insects of torture that should be kept at bay or exterminated. Eng land gets along nicely with no mosqui- toes. and is vivid contrast to New Jersey, where in certain sections they are found in clouds.
 The phu-lo plant does not exactly catch the mosquito In the coils of it's foliage and squeeze 1t to death like those curious plants of the tropics that lure their prey within reach by a song, and then spring on it like trap suffo- eating it in automatic embraces. The Tonquin plant is a sort of vegetable nightmare to the the mosquito, and as stated, the insect dare not pass a dead line of these plants, nor the premises where they are growing