“Good eyes,” he said approvingly. “That’s what’s the matter, my lad. You’ve seen the greatest enemy we have under glass. Those red specks, so small that you can hardly see them, cover the lower parts of the leaves with tiny cobwebs and choke the growth while they suck all the goodness out, and make the yellow specks on the top by sucking all the sap from the leaves.”
“What, those tiny specks!”
“Yes, those little specks would spoil all our melon plants if we did not destroy them—melons, cucumbers, vines, peaches, and nectarines—anything almost under glass. But there’s your gun and ammunition; load up and shoot ’em. Never give them any rest.”
I looked at him wonderingly, for he was pointing at a syringe standing in a pail of soapy-looking water.
“Yes,” he continued, “that’s right—kill ’em when you can. If you leave them, and greenfly, and those sort of things, alone till to-morrow, by that time they’re turned into great-grandfathers, and have got such a family of little ones about ’em that your leaves are ten times worse.”
“But what are those red specks?” I said.
“Red spider, boy. Now I’ll show you. This is my plan to keep my plants healthy: have a bucket of soap and water in every house, and a syringe in it. Then you take it up as soon as you see the mischief and kill it at once. It’s all handy for you, same as it is to have a bit of matting hanging up on a nail, ready to tie up the stem that wants it. Somebody said, Grant, ‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ it ought to have been, ‘A washed leaf keeps off grief.’ See here.”
He took the syringe, filled it, and sent a fine shower beneath the leaves of the melons, where they were trained over a trellis, thoroughly washing them all over.
“Now you try,” he said, and taking off my jacket I syringed away vigorously, while with matting and knife he tied in some loose strands and cut off others, so as to leave the vines neat.
“That’ll do for the present,” he said; “but mind this, Grant, if ever you see an enemy, shoot him while he’s a single man if you can. Wait till to-morrow, you’ll have to shoot all his relations too.”