Your Garden's Friends and Foes
A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn
her out of a garden.
--_Johnson._
YOUR garden's friends and foes,--have you ever thought about them as
such? You go to a lot of trouble to raise fine flowers and vegetables,
and then, if you are not on the lookout, before you know it something
has happened! Your rose leaves are discovered full of holes, and your
potato vines almost destroyed; your tomato plants are being eaten up by
the big, ugly "tomato worm," while your choicest flowers are dying from
the inroads of green or brown insects so tiny that at first you do not
notice them; and strong plants of all kinds are found cut off close to
the ground. What further proof do you need that your beloved garden has
its enemies?
Here indeed "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." If you would be
free and escape such ravages, you can not wait until your foes are
full-fledged and hard at work, because usually considerable damage has
then been done. Instead, you should learn at the time you begin
gardening all about the many difficulties you have to contend with,
including the various things that prey upon your plants.
When you plant seed, for instance, and it fails to come up, you are apt
to blame either the dealer or the weather man. Just as likely as not,
though, some insect had attacked the seed before it was planted, or else
the grubs got busy and enjoyed a full meal. These pests, with their
various relations, are the most difficult of all to control, but
poisoned bait (freshly cut clover that has been sprayed with Paris
green,) scattered on the ground where cut worms come out at night to
feed, will destroy many of them. When your plants have begun to grow,
however, and you find them being nipped off close to the ground, dig
close to the stem and you will probably bring to light a cut worm curled
up in his favorite position, and you can end him then and there from
doing further damage. The wire worm, on the contrary, works entirely
below the surface, and when you spade up a long, slender, jointed,
brownish, wriggling worm, quite hard, you will know that he is one of
the kind to be immediately destroyed.
These grubs and worms are the different kind of caterpillars,--the
children,--of several varieties of moths that fly by night, the shining
brown beetle that bumps against the ceiling on a summer evening, and the
funny "snap-bug." Crawling or flying, young or old, parent or child,
they generally do their worst after dark. Equal parts of soot and lime,
well mixed, scattered in a four-inch ring around each stem on the top of
the soil, will keep away the things that crawl, while white hellebore (a
poison that must not get on little fingers,) dusted on the plants will
keep off most of the things that fly. Rose bugs, however, seem to come
in a class by themselves! Apparently, they don't mind any of the
well-known deterrents and about the only way to really get rid of them
is to "go bugging," which means knocking them off into a cup of kerosene
or a box where they can be killed.
Caterpillars, naked or hairy, eat vegetation, and are consequently most
unwelcome visitors. The sowbug or pill-bug, while disagreeable to look
at, is not quite so injurious as often thought, but the mite called the
red spider can do a lot of damage. Most of the beetles seriously injure
the vegetables. The saw-flies with their offspring, and certain kinds
of ants (especially the "soldier ants") are as troublesome as the
caterpillars, while the next family group, the grasshoppers, locusts,
katydids and crickets are all great feeders,--the grasshoppers and
locusts often becoming an actual plague and destroying whole crops. To
get rid of the caterpillars and beetles various means are employed, such
as spraying with Paris green, Bordeaux mixture, kerosene emulsion, or
even strong suds made with whale-oil soap; and Paris green is also
applied dry. A pretty good poison is bran-and-arsenic mixture, but the
different liquids and powders make a story by themselves, and require
great care in using; so you better consult some successful
gardener-friend about the best one (and the way to use it,) for your
particular foe.
Of the sucking insects,--those that draw out the juice or sap of the
plant,--the aphides or "plant lice" do inestimable damage to all kinds
of plants and flowers, while the chinch bug and garden tree-hopper seem
to prefer to attack vegetables. The most familiar aphides are green, and
they have tiny, soft, pear-shaped bodies, with long legs and "feelers."
They usually live on the under side of the leaves and along the stems,
and one good way to get rid of them is to spray with kerosene emulsion
or tobacco water, or else sprinkle with clear water and then dust with
tobacco dust.
Not all of the live things that you find about your plants and flowers
are injurious, however, and you must learn to recognize those which are
beneficial. The ladybug, although a beetle, lives on aphides, and so is
your helper in destroying them. Several beetles, like the fiery ground
beetle, subsist on cutworms, and the soldier bug dines on the
destructive offspring of beetles and moths. The daddy-long-legs and the
spider are also friends to your garden, together with many wasps.
As for the bees, many, many plants are dependent on them for
fertilization, as the insects in their search for honey go clear down
into the flowers and carry with them the necessary pollen from one
blossom to another. Two stories I have heard illustrate this point. In
Australia many years ago people tried to introduce clover, but they
could not make it grow until some one thought of importing the bees
also. The native insects did not have a proboscis long enough to reach
to the bottom of the flower, so that the pollen had never been properly
placed. Then, not very long ago, a farmer living near a railroad had his
crop of tomatoes ruined because the railroad used soft coal, the soot of
which--settling on the tomato blossoms--kept away the bees so that the
flowers were not fertilized! He sued the company and recovered damages.
So you see the bee is really necessary for the success of your garden.
Toads eat many of your small enemies, and should be encouraged by
providing an upturned box or some cool, shady place in your garden where
they can rest during the day,--for much of this "dog-eat-dog" business,
sometimes termed "the law of the jungle," goes on at night.
Birds, however, wage open warfare, in broad daylight, and wherever the
soil has been cultivated, in the fields or among the plants and flowers,
the feathered tribe seek the very things you want destroyed. A
well-known nurseryman, when the English sparrow was first introduced in
this country, noticed many of the birds among his choice roses, and to
satisfy himself that they were not injuring the plants, killed one of
the fattest. An investigation of his little stomach showed it to be
chock-full of rose slugs and aphides,--the rose's worst enemies!
The robins, of the thrush family, live almost entirely on worms and
insects, and the bluebirds, orioles, tanagers and starlings, with the
various songsters, should all be given a most cordial invitation to pay
you a long visit. And this invitation? A place to live, if only a box
nailed up on a tree, with an opening small enough to keep out intruders.
A bird house more attractive in your own eyes is easily made by any boy
or girl handy with a knife or a jig-saw, and really artistic houses,
suited to particular birds, are described in various books and
magazines, made from pieces of bark, sections of limb, or fir cones. A
little study of the kind of nest each bird makes for itself may enable
you to select your guests. The swallow, the cat-bird, the blackbird, the
finch,--all should be welcomed: and suet tied on the branches, bread
crumbs scattered around your door, grain sprinkled where you especially
want them to come, will encourage the winter birds to pay you a daily
visit.
A bird bath is sure to prove an irresistible attraction. I have seen my
back yard full of starlings and sparrows, pushing and crowding each
other to get into a little pool where the snow has melted around a
clothes-pole! A shallow pan, with an inch or two of water, will often
draw so many birds that it has to be filled again and again during the
day. Birds suffer, too, in winter from thirst, and greatly appreciate a
drinking place. A bird fountain, with its running water, is a delight
for the rich; but a pretty enamelled tray, white or gray, and round,
square or oval, can be bought in a department store for less than a
dollar, and it can be sunk in the top of a vine-covered rockery or
securely placed on a mossy stump, where it will bring both joy and birds
to the smallest gardener.
So cheer up. Though your foes, as described, seem a formidable army,
remember all the friends that will rally to your aid, and with
reasonable watchfulness and care, you and your garden will come out
victorious.