Republican farmer., 1919-06-06
PROTECT PLANTS
 FROM INSECTS
THREE SIMPLE RULES.
By r. F. ROCKWELL.
(Author of Around the year in the Garden" and Making q Garden of Small Fruits" etc)

| How often have you seen a perfect 1 blossom, for which you have per 1 haps been watchfully waiting for | weeks. come to maturity only to be i disfgured, if not destroyed. by some pernicious visitor to your garden. Or l you have carefully set out and tended l some day that the leaves are showing | favorite flower, through to the early | stages of growth, only to discover l come day that the leaves are showing l fine white spots and curling up, and | to find on close inspection after the i damage is done, that thousands of l little green plant lice whose presence you had never suspected was the I cause of it. The lover of flowers is often 1 discouraged by the number of new 1 bugs, worms and beetles which turn i up. There seems to be something to 1 attack every plant that grows, and as | one has got the better of one trouble | another one. appears. Success in the war against worms and bugs, however, as in everything else, is largely a matter of knowing how" The great majority of the i insects attacking your flowers or | towering shrubs, or fruits, can be l controlled by two simple remedies. l That may sound ''so easy" as to seem | suspiCiously like a patent medicine l advertisement-but it is a fact. No 1 gardener can, however, hope to be successful in fighting the garden pes:
 until two definite things have been
 learned. Ffrst-To become familiar enough
 with the various insects first as to be | able to tell what class or type they belong to. that the proper material l can be used against them.
 Second-To watch constantly and 1 carefully to detect the first sign of trouble, and to be prepared to act imme ediately.
 Ninety per cent. of the insects at tacking your flowers belong to one of | the two general classes of eating in- sects or chewing insects. When some new pests appear in your garden. l the first thing you want to determine l is HOW HE TAKES HIS MEALS, If l he eats holes in ,the leaves. petals or flower buds of the plants, then it will be possible to kill him with an inter i nal poison. The most effective of the | internal poisons, and the most con- venient to use under any general conditions is arsenate of lead. This may be obtained in either paste or powder form. It is mixed with cold water, according to directions, to | make a poison spray that is effective against eating chewing insects. | Calcium arsenate. light white powder is also mixed with water to make effective arsenate poison | spray. Either of these materials will | leave a slightly noticeable white de- | posit on the foliage, which some par l ticular gardeners object to. Paris 1 Green, which is another arsenate poi son, does not leave any deposit; but it is not as effective, washes off much more quickly, and is not safe to use as the foliage may be burned if the spray mixture Is mixed too strong. Either of these poisons must be applied to the plants to be pro- tected when the bugs or worms to be fought first appear; that is, the poi son must be applied IN ADVANCE to what ever they are expected to feed on. As the sucking insects. which in- clude the various forms of plant lice or aphids ARE NOT AFFECTED by arsenate of lead, Paris Green or any other internal poison spray. If ] gardeners would only learn this simple thing it would save many hours of work, many plants, and many dollars each season. The sucking insects get their nour- ishment from inside of the leaves of
 stems of the plants. Although they may appear at first to be doing little l damage. they are really much more injurious than most of chewing in-
 sects. Unless immediate steps to fight them are taken, they are likely to ruin the entire plant bed in a l short time. While many things have | been recommended for the control of r1a nj the one which has proved the most | convenient and the most efficient 1
 under ordinary conditions is nicotine |
 sulphate, forty per cent. strong.
 This is put out under various trade l
 names such as Black Leaf Forty" l
 Nicotine Extract, containing as little
 as twelve per cent. nicotine with |
 other ingredients, are effective but the |
 brands containing forty per cent |
 being stronger requires less to make l
 good quality of spray material and |
 are really cheaper, although they |
 may cost more per ounce or per pint |
 To use they need merely to be
 mixed with cold water. On some
 plants. especially those with smooth |
 shiny foliage, it may be necessary to
 add a small amount of soap to the |
 spray to make it spread and stick
 better. One teaspoonful of forty per
 cent. nicotine sulphate to the gallon
 of water will make strong enough 1
 spray to control aphfds, scales, etc.
 Nicotine Is called Contact Poi i
 son." In other words to be effective, l
 it must be applied DIRECTLY TO 1
 THE INSECTS to be controlled 1
 There is no use putting it on the sur
 face of the plant in advance, as is
 done with arsenate of ledd and other
 internal poisons. As the plant ap-
 hids and other sucking insects gem
 eralIy work on the UNDER surface |
 of the leaves, in applying nicotine
 spray it is desira ble to use spray
 with considerable force, and also
 with am angle side outlet nozzle,
 so that the under surface of the l
 foliage can easily be reached. If the
 enough that some of the leaves
 are tightly rolled or curled up, and
 the insects cannot be reached with a
 spray, pick off AND BURN all such
 frr11 xrfv