Orchard and Garden.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 January 1911, Page 4

Orchard and Garden.

SLUGS AND SNAILS. The Victorian Government Botanist (Professor A. J. Ewart) contributes two pages of notes on slugs and snails to the current issue of the departmental journal. No pest causes the amateur gardener more worry, and any hints likely to help in the direction of reducing this perstsent pest are always welcome. Professor Ewart remark that it is perhaps'hardly .necessary to mention the amount of damage that slugs and snails may do, especially on moist, heavy ground and among young seedlings. It is curious to note how such plants as peas, broad beans, beet, parsnips, and 1 parsely are usually left untouched; whereas young lettuce, tomatoes, turnips, cabbages, cauliflowers, and even carrots often .suffer severely., and may be destroyed in a single night. It can hardly be due to the presence of anything inupleasant in the flavour of the Teal, or to any peculiarity of a particular group of plants, since the first leaves of the French beans are often badly attacked. It may be dependent upon the rapidity with which the outer skin of the plant hardens, or upon its developing special protective hairs, a»s. in many weeds, and as in the tomato when beyond the seedling stage. Two methods often employed; of warding off their attacks are by the use of lime, wood ashes, etc. The effect of these rarely lasts for more than a clay or two, and any heavy shower of rain renders them immediately useless. It may therefore be of interest to record a method which I found to be most effective in preventing their ravages, and which is at the. same time very cheap and easily applied, so much' so that it may prove useful on a larger scale than in gardens. It is, for instance much cheaper tlian the use of tobacco powder, and has not the danger attaching to the use of metallic poisons, while it is at the same time much more effective and permanent in its action than the use of salt or sand, and does not involve the labour needed to catch slugs and snails at night, or capture them by means of ca!bbage leaves, etc. ' The method! is, in brief, to add one or two large teacups of phenyle to ten or twenty cups of water, and use the mixture to moisten a bucket of sawdust. The sawdust is then spread around the rows of plants to be protected , , or around single plants; if the area enclosed' is a large one it is also sprinkled on the surface of the soil. The protective action is remarkable. It persists even after a heavy rain if the sawdust is not washed away, and it lasts for a considerable time. pairing wet weather a stronger solution can be employed, since the phenyle washes out of the sawdust. No injurious action is exercised on the plants, nor upon the soil as the sawdust slowly works into it. The effect of depriving the animals of their food is to cause a marked decrease in their numbers, quite apart from any poisonous action. The labour and cost involved 1 are exceed L ing small: A bag of sawdust at Is, allowing 6d for carriage, and; Is worth of phonyle at 3s 6d per gallon, will be sufficient for a fairly large garden. The method is particularly effective and useful for protecting young tomato plants which, in the young seedling condition are often destroyed by slugs or snails when planted, out, by toeing eaten at the base near the ground. As soon as the epilermis skin of the plant thickens ami acquires its proper hairy cover.ng the plants are immiune to their 11tacks, whereas such plants as cabbages, etc., are liable to attack us long as the weather is moist, am? hence need longer protection.

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