The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-07-08
INSECT ENEMIES
IN THE GARDEN
Destructive Pests Make Gardeners
Fight Them Constantly To Be
Successful.

Destructive insect pests give the
gardener or farmer a fight from the
time he puts his seed into the ground
until the crops are ready for market.
Left alone, they would devour every
useful plant in the garden. The sue
cessful gardener is the n who studies
the habits of these pests, learns the
means of combating them, and keeps
constantly at it.
The gardener who starts with clean
soil has done much to keep out in
sects and diseases. Many diseases
and insects live over winter in the
soil, and one of the best ways to avoid
a different part of the garden, every
year. Some of the worst garden trou-
bles are brought in on roots of
plants; consequently, in buying plants
of any kind one should be sure they
r healthy and free from insects.
Use Some Kind of Poison.
In spite of the best precautions, in
sects will attack healthy plants. The
principal measures effective against
them are various kinds of poison,
generally applied as a spray or IS a
poison bait, in the form of bran mix
lures. The kind of poison to be used
depends upon the insects method Of
feeding. Some bite and chew the
leaves and other parts of the plants,
and these are best destroyed by ar
senical stomach poisons, such as Paris
green, arsenate of lead, and arsenate
of lime. Of these, a~rsenate of lead
is the best and safest for general use,
and also adheres better to the foliage.
Paris green is likely to burn some
plants, such as beans, seriously if not
carefully applied, but on account of
it's long use can be obtained at every
drug store and seed house.
Sucking insects, or those which
puncture the skin of the leaf and feed
upon its sap, are combatted with con-
tact poisons, sprayed or otherwise ap-
piled on the bugs. such as nicotine
sulphate and kerosene emulsion.
Where these are applied as a spray
it is often desirable to mix them with
Bordeaux mixture to prevent various
fungous troubles.
The most destructive garden plant
enemy, and one which made its APP
pearance with the last half of the
10Th century, is the common Colorado
potato beetle, known to farmers as
the potato bug. This potato beetle
passes the winter in the ground and
energies early in the spring, so that he
is on hand when the first potato leaves
begin to push through the ground.
Within a few days the familiar lit
found on the underside of the leaves.
tie clusters of yellow eggs may be
The hatch from four to even days,
and the stink, dark red larvae, COM
monty called "slugs," commence de-
vouring the leaves at a disastrous
rate. They attain maturity in about
three weeks after Matching. There
are from one to three broods a year,
and, as one female potato bug is
known to lay between 500 and 1900
gigs, it can easily be seen that the
rate Of multiplication is appalling and
that the insect would be a veritable
scourge were not destructive meas
ures employed.
In small garden patches it is we'll
to find and crush beetles and the eggs
on the leaves. This vest is not diff
cult to control, no other method being
necessary for its destruction than the
free use of an arsenical. In very
small gardens both beetles and slugs
may be picked off or Jared into pans
containing water with a film of kero-
Sene.
Easily Destroyed by Poison.
An ~arsenical may be applied dry,
mixed with 10 to 20 parts cheap dry
flour or hydrated lime and busted on,
preferably when the dew is on, by
means of guns or bellows, so as to
cover the plants and leave as little
as possible. The application must be
repeated as often as new larvae hatch.
A spray is generally preferred. 1t
is prepared by mixing arsenical with
water or Bordeaux mixture at the
rate of one pound of poison to so gal
Ions of the liquid. A small quantity
of quicklime in the mixture will pre-
vent scorching the leaves.
Arsenate of lead is sold in either
dry or paste form and should be mixed
at the rate of one pound of paste or
one-half pound dry powder to Is to %
gallons of water or Bordeaux mixture.
Two or three sprayings will ordinarily
suffice for the spring brood, and the
same number should be applied for
the second and third generations.
Both insecticides are deadly poisons
and should be kept away from chill
dren. The spray will also prevent
in iury Inv tho pototo flea -heetlaS