INSECTICIDES--TOOL-ROOM
The enemies of growing things have certainly increased alarmingly of
late years. I cannot recall that formerly any insect was to be found
in either vegetable or flower garden, other than the potato bug,
currant-worm, cabbage-worm, and the green worm and small black beetle
on the Rose; but now there are so many horrid creatures lying in wait
until a plant is in perfection, to cut the stalk, or eat the root, or
eat the pith from the stalk so that it falls, or to devour the leaves
and eat the blossoms, that insecticides and a spraying machine are
as necessary to a garden as a spade. For a small garden a spraying
machine holding from a couple of quarts to a gallon, can be bought for
a trifling sum, that will answer the purpose very well For a larger
garden, a good air-pump, costing from five dollars upwards, will be
found an excellent investment.
One of the best insecticides is Bordeaux mixture, which can either be
bought or made. I have twenty-five gallons made at a time and keep it
always on hand. The following is the receipe:
Three pounds of blue vitriol in coarse crystals; three pounds of
unslaked lime. Slake the lime in two and one-half gallons of water;
pour two and one-half gallons of water over the blue vitriol in
another receptacle, and let both stand over night. In the morning
stir the blue vitriol until all is dissolved; then let two persons
pour simultaneously the lime water and the blue vitriol into the same
receptacle, and add twenty gallons of water; stir well before filling
the spraying machine.
[Illustration: The Pergola (first summer)
August twenty-fifth]
Bordeaux mixture is to be used for rust, mildew, and all kinds of
blight, whenever the leaves of plants have a tendency to turn black.
Hollyhocks seem to be universally attacked by rust. Spraying the plants
at the end of April, and again in the middle of May, should entirely
prevent this. I have found that Bordeaux mixture prevents the leaves
of Monkshood from turning black and falling off, if the plants are well
sprayed with it about the middle of June and the first of July.
Phloxes grown in rather shady places will, in damp weather, fall
victims to mildew on the leaves. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture the
end of June and middle of July should prevent this. Roses also have a
tendency in warm, damp weather to mildew, which can be prevented by
spraying the plants with Bordeaux mixture.
Kerosene emulsion may also be prepared, and is excellent for killing,
both the small green aphids that often cover the leaves of Roses, and
other hard, scaly insects. Following is the receipe:
Put one cake of laundry soap shaved fine into one gallon of water. When
dissolved, add two gallons of kerosene oil. This makes the emulsion.
For spraying, use one quart of the emulsion in fourteen quarts of
water. Be sure that this is very thoroughly mixed before filling the
sprayer.
Powdered hellebore, if dissolved in the proportion of one pound of
powder to one gallon of water, will destroy both the green worm on the
Rose leaf and the small dark beetle that eats the Roses. It will also
dispose of green worms on other plants.
Slug-shot dissolved, one-half pound of powder to one gallon of water,
will, if used the latter part of April and several times in May, keep
the Roses comparatively free from insects. Slug-shot and hellebore may
also be used dry and blown on to the plants with a bellows.
I have used Hellebore in my garden for many years without harm to
anything except the worms and beetles. But recently I heard of a lady
who was severely poisoned in using dry Hellebore. The wind blew it into
her face; perhaps some was inhaled, and serious illness resulted. I
mention the fact here, to caution all who use it not to let either the
spray or the powder come in contact with the skin. Some persons may be
susceptible to the poison while others are not,--presenting a case of
what the doctors call an "idiosyncrasy."
Paris green, mixed in the proportion of two tablespoonfuls to three
quarts of water and used as a spray, will destroy a beetle that
sometimes appears upon the Gourd vines.
Tobacco water will kill the black aphids which appear on the stems and
leaves of hardy Chrysanthemums. It will also kill green aphids. This
spray is made by filling an ordinary pail lightly, not pressed down,
with tobacco stems. Pour as much cold water into the pail as it will
hold; let it stand for three hours, when it is ready to use in the
spraying machine. This mixture will be good for only twenty-four hours.
Tobacco spray will also destroy the large red aphid (I call it this for
want of, perhaps, the proper name) that has recently appeared in some
localities upon the stems of the Rudbeckia (Golden Glow) and of the
single hardy Sunflower, just below the blossom.
The enemy of the Box is the white spider. The insect spins its web on
the Box and works from the inside. If the branches are pulled aside,
the inside of the plant will be found full of dead leaves in the
vicinity of the web. Recently I read in a well-known gardening monthly,
that this spider could be destroyed by spraying with kerosene emulsion.
I have some fine Box trees, and there were several white spider-webs on
each. Watering with a very strong force of water had been tried without
effect. Upon reading the article in the monthly and finding that the
spider was certainly causing disaster which might be fatal, I proceeded
to have the trees sprayed with kerosene emulsion, using it of the same
strength as for Roses. In fact, the sprayer was not re-filled, as
there was enough left in it since last using it on the Roses. About
three days after the Box had been sprayed, large, unsightly brown
patches appeared on the trees, showing that the emulsion had killed the
leaves wherever it touched them. The spider was not harmed.
I mention this experience as an example of the danger of taking all
the directions found in horticultural publications as gospel truth.
Nor should an amateur gardener ever be tempted to trifle with plant
medicines. I have a certain friend whose affection for her Roses
is more profound than her knowledge of how to treat their natural
diseases. Observing last summer that one of her most cherished Crimson
Ramblers was covered with aphids, she concluded to spray it with
"something." A bottle of carbolic acid being most available, she
tested its merits at once. The efficacy of carbolic acid as a poison
was proved beyond a doubt, for the insects became singularly dead in
a day or two, and so did the leaves; they fell off together. There
was nothing left but the forlorn stems and branches, looking like some
freak of the vegetable kingdom.
TOOL-ROOM
[Illustration: Tritoma (Red-Hot Poker Plant)
September twenty-eighth]
It is of the greatest importance to have a tool-room or closet
according to the size of the place, and to require all implements
to be kept there when not in actual use. There should be shelves
across one end or side, where shears, trowels, garden cord, clippers,
watering-cans, mallet, various mixtures for spraying, oil-cans, keys
for turning on the water, twine and all the smaller things one uses,
may be found at a moment's notice. Garden sticks painted green, in
three sizes, three and a half and four feet long, and five-eighths of
an inch in diameter, and thicker ones an inch in diameter for Dahlias,
should be kept on hand in barrels. They can be bought of lumber-dealers
in New York, where they are known as "dowels." They come in bundles
of one hundred, costing from sixty cents to a dollar and twenty-five
cents a bundle, according to size, unpainted, and the men can paint
them on rainy days. The lawn mowers and the roller (which should be
a heavy one) can also be kept in the tool-room. Rakes, both iron and
wooden, hoes, spades and shovels, the latter both long-handled and
short-handled, are best kept hung up along one side of the closet,
where the men can see at a glance what they want.
There should also be a pickaxe and a crowbar for taking out refractory
stones, and, most necessary of all things in a garden, the wheelbarrow
should be kept here, too. A sickle and a scythe must not be forgotten.
If the garden is large, a two-wheel tip-cart will prove a great saver
of labor in carting manure and soil and in the removal of debris.
On a particular shelf in my tool-room I keep my private trowel and
flower scissors, to which are attached long red ribbons as a warning of
"Hands off!" to others. There is also a clipper which I often use in
walking about to trim a bit here and there from a shrub or a climbing
Rose.
If a scrap-book be kept, in which everything of interest pertaining to
the garden can be pasted or written, it will be found a great help. In
this way items about fertilizers, insecticides, special treatment of
plants, with copies of lists ordered, can be preserved, and also, most
interesting of all, notes of when the different plants bloom each year.
I find the following under date of October 18, 1901:
"To-day, though ice has formed three times, I have filled nineteen
vases with flowers. They are Phlox, Larkspur, Monkshood, Salvia,
Nasturtium, Roses, Mignonette and Chrysanthemums."
After trying many kinds of gloves for gardening, including the rubber
ones, I now use only old Suede gloves; they give sufficient covering
and permit more freedom of movement to the hands and fingers than those
of heavier material. It would be quite impossible to transplant tiny
seedlings while wearing gloves with clumsy finger-tips.
Unless a woman possesses a skin impervious to wind and sun, she is
apt to come through the summer looking as red and brown as an Indian;
and if one is often out in the glare, about the only headgear that
can be worn to prevent this, is the old-fashioned sunbonnet. With its
poke before and cape behind, protecting the neck, one really cannot
become sunburned, and pink ones are not so bad. Retired behind its
friendly shelter, you are somewhat deaf to the world; and at the
distant house, people may shout to you and bells be rung at you, and,
if your occupation be engrossing, the excuse "no one can hear through a
sunbonnet," must be accepted.
CONCLUSION