"Of course, plant lice are more common. Those we see are often green in colour. But they may be red, yellow or brown. Kerosene emulsion is the medicine for plant lice. Lice are easy enough to find since they are always clinging to their host. As sucking insects they have to cling close to a plant for food, and one is pretty sure to find them. But the biting insects do their work, and then go hide. That makes them much more difficult to deal with.
"Rose slugs do great damage to the rose bushes. They eat out the body of the leaves, so that just the veining is left. They are soft-bodied, green above and yellow below. Since they are eating insects Paris green will kill them. But the kerosene emulsion penetrates their soft bodies; so this also may be used.
"A beetle, the striped beetle, attacks young melons and squash leaves. It eats the leaf by riddling out holes in it. This beetle, as its name implies, is striped. The back is black with yellow stripes running lengthwise. White hellebore powder kills these pests. Ask the druggist for five cents' worth and you will have a great plenty for any of your gardens. It, too, is a poison. This poison is also good to use for the caterpillars that eat many of our garden plants. Make a circle four inches from the stalk of an infested plant and sprinkle the powder in this. Evening time is good for this, because the dew moistens the powder just enough to make it a nuisance to the insect.
"Then there are the slugs, which are garden pests. The slug will devour almost any garden plant, whether it be a flower or a vegetable. They lay lots of eggs in old rubbish heaps. Do you see the good of cleaning up rubbish? The slugs do more harm in the garden than almost any other single insect pest. You can discover them in the following way. There is a trick for bringing them to the surface of the ground in the day time. You see they rest during the day below ground. So just water the soil in which the slugs are supposed to be. How are you to know where they are? They are quite likely to hide near the plants they are feeding on. So water the ground with some nice clean lime water. This will disturb them, and up they'll poke to see what the matter is.
"Beside these most common of pests already mentioned, pests which attack many kinds of plants, there are special pests for special plants. Discouraging, is it not? Beans have pests of their own; so have potatoes and cabbages, as George well knows. In fact, the vegetable garden has many inhabitants. In the flower garden lice are very bothersome, the cutworm and the slug have a good time there, too, and ants often get very numerous as the season advances. But for real discouraging insect troubles the vegetable garden takes the prize. If we were going into fruit to any extent, perhaps the vegetable garden would have to resign in favour of the fruit garden.
"A common pest in the vegetable garden is the tomato worm. This is a large yellowish or greenish striped worm. Its work is to eat into the young fruit.
"A great, light green caterpillar is found on celery. This caterpillar may be told by the black bands, one on each ring or segment of its body.
"The squash bug may be told by its brown body, which is long and slender, and by the disagreeable odour from it when killed. The potato bug is another fellow to look out for. It is a beetle with yellow and black stripes down its crusty back. The little green cabbage worm is a perfect nuisance. It is a small caterpillar and smaller than the tomato worm. These are perhaps the most common of garden pests by name. It might be well to take up the common vegetables and flowers mentioning the pests which prey on each one.
"Let us take the vegetables first. None of us have grown asparagus yet; but it will be well to know about this vegetable. There is a beetle which may trouble asparagus plants. It is red with markings of black. The grub of this beetle is dark green. Look out for the asparagus beetle during April and May, for these are the months when it appears. The eggs are laid on young shoots of the plant. Such shoots should be cut right off. After the cutting season is over the plants should be sprayed. This may be done in August. Very dilute Bordeaux mixture or Paris green may be used for a spray.
"Next in the alphabet come beans. The most common trouble that beans have is one called anthracnose. That staggering word means that the leaves become covered with spots which are round with purple borders. Again, a spray of Bordeaux mixture should be used. The plants should be sprayed until the pods form. Look for this trouble in July.