PLANT ENEMIES AND INSECTICIDES
The well-tended garden does not suffer materially from inroads of
insect pests especially in favorable seasons; cool, damp weather,
and hot, muggy weather are conducive to fungoid diseases which sap
the strength of the plants and make them less resistant to any kind
of assaults, whether of insects or disease, but with normal weather
and bright dry air a part of each day at least, little trouble should
be experienced from insect pests; especially should this be the case
if precautionary work has been done the previous fall in the way of
gathering up and burning all rubbish that can harbor insects or disease
and especially if the precaution is taken to fall plough the garden,
leaving the soil in the rough furrow over winter. This is especially
good practice when there has been trouble with insect pests,
especially cutworms, root lice, tomato worms—the pupae of which winter
in the ground and if turned up by the plough will be destroyed, radish
and cabbage maggot and the like.
Even though the past season has been practically free from trouble
of this sort the intelligent gardener will recognize the possibility
of trouble and in time of peace will prepare for war by supplying
himself with the more common and useful varieties of insecticides. It
is not desirable that the list should include everything in the bug
pharmacopæia; a few standard remedies faithfully and intelligently
used are far better than an embarrassing assortment that leaves one
undecided as to which is best and often results in half-hearted use of
first one and then the other, with lax intervals which give the enemy
time to recuperate and multiply.
It is best in deciding upon the insecticides and fungicides to be
used to have a clear classification in mind of the several kinds of
insect to be exterminated as one form of poison may not be suited to
all forms of insect life: for instance, insects which chew or eat
the leaves of the plants to which they are addicted, as the potato
beetle, caterpillar and the like, can most readily be destroyed by
poison applied to the foliage; insects which do not eat the vegetation
on the surface, but puncture it and drain away by suction the juices
of the plant, like the aphis and other plant lice, will not be injured
by surface poison, but must be destroyed by the contact of corrosive
poison with their bodies, or with hot water, which is one of the best
insecticides known, not only destroying all insect life with which it
comes in contact, but cleansing and strengthening the plants. It should
be used as a spray at about a hundred and forty degrees, taking pains
to reach the underside of the leaves as well as the upper surface,
and as it can be used when the fruit is in any stage of growth its
advantage is obvious.
For the eating or chewing insects and beetles there are several
reliable poisons on the market, all ready for use, needing only to be
mixed with a definite bulk of water, flour or lime, according as the
poison is to be used as a dust or a spray.
ARSENATE OF LEAD
Used for all chewing insects that attack foliage and fruit trees; will
not wash off nor burn the foliage. Use two or three pounds to fifty
gallons of water as a spray. Price about forty-five cents a pound.
ARSENATE OF ZINC
A quick-acting adhesive insecticide for potato bugs, rose beetles and
vegetables that have not headed sufficiently to be injurious if touched
with the poison. Forty-five cents per pound.
BUG DEATH
Used instead of Paris green for eating insects on potatoes, squashes,
melons, eggplants, cucumbers. Twenty-five cents a pound; directions
accompany it.
PARIS GREEN
For all chewing insects. As a dust use one part of the poison to one
hundred parts plaster, or flour; as a spray, one pound Paris green to
one hundred and fifty to three hundred gallons of water according to
the tenderness of the foliage. Sixty-five cents per pound.
PYROX
For eating insects, fungus growth, blight and rot. Adheres to foliage.
One pound to six gallons of water. Forty cents per pound.
SLUG SHOT
For potato bugs, tomato and cabbage worms, lice aphis and worms—use as
dust with blow gun. Twenty cents a pound.
For fungoid diseases, blight and rot the various Bordeaux mixtures,
single and combined with the arsenates so as to take the place of a
separate poison for chewing insects, are suggested.
BORDEAUX MIXTURE
The standard remedy against fungus, rust and rot. Five ounces to one
gallon of water is standard strength. Spray at intervals until fruits
sets, for potatoes till danger of late blight is passed. Thirty-five
cents a pound.
BORDEAUX-ARSENATE OF LEAD
A combined fungicide and insecticide for potatoes, melons, cucumbers
and squash. Three ounces to one gallon of water. Spray once a week or
every ten days. Forty cents per pound.
KEROSENE EMULSION
For all soft-bodied, sucking insects, especially aphis and lice. One
pound of paste to ten gallons of water. Paste, thirty cents a pound.
DIRECTIONS FOR PREPARING
KEROSENE EMULSION
Dissolve one-half pound of soap in one gallon of boiling water, add two
gallons of kerosene, and force through a spray pump again and again
until an emulsion is formed. Dilute from ten to twenty-five times
before applying. Use rain-water for making solution.
BORDEAUX-ARSENATE OF LEAD
One pound of arsenate of lead with fifty gallons of Bordeaux mixture
for all eating insects and fungoid diseases.
BORDEAUX MIXTURE
Dissolve six pounds of copper sulphate by hanging it in a bag of coarse
cloth in an earthen or wooden vessel containing four to six gallons of
water, and dilute with twenty-five gallons of water. Slake four pounds
of lime, diluting to twenty-five gallons and mix by pouring the two
solutions into a third vessel. This is of such universal use that the
large quantity will not be excessive, especially when combined with the
arsenical preparations.
VEGETABLES AND INSECTS AND DISEASES ATTACKING THEM
ASPARAGUS
Keep the beds closely cut in spring and as soon as the shoots are
allowed to grow spray with Bordeaux-arsenate of lead mixture.
BEANS-ANTHRACNOSE
Spray with Bordeaux mixture when an inch or two high and repeat as
necessary.
BEAN BEETLE
Spray with kerosene emulsion, being sure that it reaches every part of
the under side of the leaves.
BEAN WEEVIL
Fumigate the seed before planting with carbon-bisulphide, in a
closed vessel for twenty-four hours or with formaldehyde, using one
teaspoonful to a pint of water and wetting the seed and covering close
a few hours.
FLEA BEETLE
Spray with arsenate of lead or Bordeaux-arsenate mixture.
BEET-LEAF SPOT
Spray with Bordeaux mixture and repeat once in two weeks but the leaves
must not be used for greens after spraying begins.
CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER
Aphis: spray with kerosene emulsion and repeat as needful until the
heads are nearly grown.
CABBAGE WORM
Spray with poisoned resin-lime mixture if the plants are young; after
heads have formed use kerosene emulsion or hot water, preferably the
latter.
CABBAGE ROOT MAGGOT
Protect the plants with disks of tar paper and wet the soil with Paris
green solution or emulsion composed of one pound of soap, one gallon of
boiling water and one pint of crude carbolic acid diluted with forty
parts of water, using sufficient to soak the soil several inches.
CELERY BLIGHT
Spray with Bordeaux mixture once in two weeks, until plants are half
grown.
CUCUMBERS
For the striped beetle, use tobacco dust about the hills. Spray plants
and ground with kerosene emulsion. Wrap rags saturated with kerosene
about sticks and stick in center of hills to repel bugs with the odor.
Better still, protect hills with frames of wire screening or mosquito
netting. Spray with Bordeaux-arsenate of lead every two weeks.
SQUASH BUG
Hand pick the first bugs that appear and find and destroy all eggs.
Dust with Bug Death. Protect with wire cloth.
BLIGHT
Leaves become spotted or covered with down. Spray every two weeks with
Bordeaux mixture.
ONIONS
Blight.—Spray every ten days with two-thirds strength Bordeaux mixture.
Root lice.—Open trench along side the plants and apply salt freely.
PEAS—APHIS
Spray with kerosene emulsion until pods are filling; then spray with
hot water.
PEAS—MILDEW
Spray with Bordeaux mixture containing resin wash to make it stick, or
with Pyrox.
POTATO—COLORADO BEETLE
Hand pick to destroy eggs. If young appear spray or dust with Paris
green or Pyrox and repeat as often as necessary.
FLEA BEETLE
Keep plants well covered with Bordeaux mixture or Pyrox.
SCAB
Do not plant on freshly manured land, should be manured in fall or
February at latest. Soak seed in formaldehyde before planting and dip
each piece in sulphur.
SQUASH BORER
Slit infested stem and destroy worm and cover injured branch with earth
or stone.
SQUASH BUGS
Use tobacco stems freely about hills. Spray with hot water very early
in morning.
TOMATO
For leaf-blight.—Spray with Bordeaux mixture every ten days.
TOMATO WORMS
Pick worms, gather eggs and spray with Paris green or Pyrox. Do not use
poison after the fruit is set. Fall-plough the tomato lot to rid the
soil of the chrysalids of the worm.
CAUTION
In nearly all cases of surface infestation of plants, the insects can
be destroyed with clear hot water, hot soapsuds of either whale oil
soap or ivory soap or kerosene emulsion and this should be the first
resort, using poison solutions only when the former fail to give relief.
Bordeaux mixture is so generally indicated for all diseases of foliage
and kerosene for so large a number of insects that it pays to prepare
these at home in the large quantities and have them always on hand. The
kerosene sometimes "goes back" and needs to be forced with the pump
into a fresh emulsion.