HOW TO FIGHT THE PESTS OF GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 10

HOW TO FIGHT THE PESTS OF GARDEN AND ORCHARD.

To read long lists of plants attacked and 'bewiideringiv longer lists of their foes is needlessly depressing.

To fight the garden pests is a serious task, out far from a hopeless one. Assemble a few insecticides and fungicides, and draw upon this simple laboratory with knowledge and system, and you can kill the pests and shame the pessimist.

You should be ready to use Bordeaux mixture, a. lime and sulphur scale destroyer, a kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, Paris green, and hellebore. With rare exceptions, these will ba sufficient, and pests that they wall not kill can be attacked by hand, by packdijg, praning, or burning. It should also he understood that there are natural enemies'" which destroy insects in myriad quantity — birds and snakes and toads and chickens, and, perhaps even move, insect parasites; for, exemplifying tihe well-known rhyme, most pests have smaller pests to bite 'em, and so proceed ad infinitum Pestilence, too, unexpectedly takes off enormous hosts of insects, just as tihe plague used to sweep off hosts of human beings. And it was a wise man who remarked that good agriculture is itself the best of insecticides. Clean up after every crop; destroy a-11 fallen fruit; keep dead wood and wood piles out of the orchard ; strengthen your plants with fertiliser, for the stronger the plant the better it resists bugs and scale and fungus. Cultivate the ground thoroughly, for immense numbers of evil things, in tihe forma of larvae and pupae and eggs, are d<2stroy«d by opening them to air and sunlight. Rotate your crops, because some insects, not finding tbeir favourife'food, are not peckish enough to take up with someitihing else, but prefer to die. Use cunning: such as growing mustard between lines of cabbage, to attract the harlequin bug to where it can do no harm and can readily be killed.

—How Bugs Travel.—

But although it is so important to realise all this, the foot .must be faced that active applications are also necessary and that our .plants are attacked by an increased and inci-easinor variety of foes. Fo>* this, civilisation and commerce are responsible. An insect or a scale that used to stay quietly at home, in Asia 'or South Amerioa or Europe, is now carried to our shores as a stowaway passenger, and here, like other immigrants, thrives and multiplies. The San Jose scale thus entered California, and its course eastward has been traced, step by step, as historians trace the route of the Huns and Vandals. So well understood now is this danger that th 3 Americar tourist, landing at a German port with perhaps two or three apples still with him, must surrender them to uniformed officials for 24- hours of fumigation. The woolly aphis is a traveller from land to land. The potato-bug spread from Colorado, where it is still known as a practically innocuous • insect, feeding on a kind of wild potato. Many insects, especially in the form oc caterpillars, have been traced as travelling along the roads by waggon, by automobile, by-bicycle. Instead of merely having to fight the natural pests of one's ewn locality, we must now fijht the pests of tho whole world; but to understand tihe danger is to be prepared for it Bordeaux mixtuie is the best of fungicides. It is composed of copper sulphate and lime mixed in water, the mixture varying according to individual judgment. The proportion of 6lb of copper' sulphate and 41b of lime tr each 50ga,l of water is known as the standard, but five and five to 50 has become more customary; and is espe -ially advisable when the purity of the lime is in c'oubt, for it makes it more sure that all the copper sulphate is properly neutralised, and thus reduces the danger of scorching or russeting fruit. Bordeaux mixture is liable to injure the foliage of the peach, and for peach trees it is therefore ofton used in the proportion of t'iree-nine-fifiv. Avd there arei s-tiH ofher \ariant-. Fo.- lcs than 50saJ of water, reduce the limo and the coppex sulphate proportionately. Copper sulphate is also known as blu \ itriol or bluestone.

— Bordeaux Mixtuip Made at Horne —

Bordeaux mixture properly made as brilliant sky-blae in colour If the lime is of bad quality the mixture will bo greenish, and if a pronounced green the foliage will be injured. You may buy Bordeaux mixture in a form to be diluted with water, or you may make it yourself. If you make h, take two old tubs, and in one nut Oialf the water to be used, and diaaolverin it the bluestone by suspending it in a coarse-meshed bag In the other tub slake the lime and put in the other half of the water Then mix the two in a 'barrel, dipping alternately The lime solution shouVl meanwhile be kept stirred, an<# the entire mixture must be frequently stirred while spraying Bordeaux mixture (I have heard it delightfully pronounced bsrderax'.) sometimes ha* a little arsenic or Paris green, which is more than half arsenic, put in it to kill certain insects iis well os fungus

Bordeaux mixture is efficacious as a 3pr<i,y for iho apple scab and leaf spot, for

batiei rot, for the leaf blight of pear and ctberry lrec>. the peach-leaf curl of the pe^ch, the brown rot of tihe peach and plum, the fungus attack known as anthraonose of grape and berries, the fungus which makes a whitish growth on grape leaves, the fungus which blights the strawberry leaves. It is excellent for the spotted leaves of the hollyhock, aster, violet and carnation, and the mi'ldewed-like leaves of the lilajQ.

It is efficacious for the disease which spots the leaves of the bean and the beet ; it is a foe to the fungus which yellowspots celery leaves, to the fungus which mildews the leaves of the cucumber, to the disease which ijrives black leaves to the potato, to the rust which strikes at the stalks of asparagus. Bordeaux mixture is used as a spray, and sometimes one or two sprayings are sufficient. But that it is not always a simple matter is illustrated by the treatment of grapes for black ro-l or anthracmose. After all dead branches, leaves, and -withered fruit of the previous year are collected onx? burned, then, as the buds are swelling, spray with Bordeaux so thoroughly as to cover not only the vines, but also -tie posts ax*3 trellises. Ten or 12 days later, when the grapes are in bud, spray again. Again spray when the fruit has set, annd repeat at intervals of 10 days or two weeks till the fruit approaches maturity. Such tasks seem elaborate, and are elaborate. Yet, after all, as a man is willing to hoe and hoe interminably to conquer weeds, he should not think it unreasonable to "spray and spray to conquer deadly fungus. It is really appalling 'how much poison k nowadays used in orchards and gardens. A Government report says that a man must eat several barrels of arsenic^sprayed apples at a sitting to die of poison, or two dozen arsenic-sprayed cabbages. But even granted that this is technically tr*t>> it does not take irrto account oareJeßs mixing or the fruit that gets more than its share. It isn't pleasant to think what cider may contain, or to know that it is unsafe to eat fruit till it is carefully washed or rubbed. Yet the fresh bloom on fruit used to be the very symbol of innocence and purity! Ldme and sulphuir mixture is the best insecticide, and is especially valuable for the terrible San Jose scale, which, it was prophesied a few years ago, would destroy every apple tree. Now, however, no tree need be cut down because of being attacked" by thi6 scale unless the attack has reached a virulent stage. * If you sea what seems to be a scurfy deposit on your fruit trees, a scurfy appearance, greyish in colour and a trifle rough, full of tiny speckles, your trees have the dreaded scale. If you are #iot positive, scrape the scale and examine closely to see if a yellowish liquid appears. If it does, you nave crushed small insects, tihe ecalelioe, and thus proved the presence of the scale. The full-grown scale is about gin m dia~'meter. The young scale-lice come out in the spring from underneath the female ■ scales, " and are minute and yellow. They crawl about for a while, selecting new growth to fasten themselves to, or are carried to other trees on the feet of bird*. On minute inspection^ or with, a glass, you may sometimes see mother and young travelling along like a hen and chickens. On the older trees the scale is likely to remain on the twigs or small branches, but on young trees it may cover the entire tree, giving it the appearance of being coated with lime or ashes. It may attack the fruit, as well as the bark and leaves; and fruit so attacked shows a little purplish ring around each scale. Trees quickly diewhole orchard's soon stand stark and dead — unless action be taken promptly.

A lime-sulphur-ealt mixture is very powerful, and should be used only when the fruit tree is dormant. When applied to the apple tree for San Jose scale it also attacks the blister mite; on the pear tree it attacks the jumping louse (the pear Psylla), which makes the leaves black ; on the peach it kill's the borer which destroys, the buds. This mixture is made in varying proportions, but a standard for 50gal of water '6 201b of unslaked lime, 151b of flour or flowers of hulphur, and 101 b of salt The lime should be 201b if of average quality, Dut if specially good only 151b, or if poor or partly slaked, 301b. A good many people do without the salt. But salt, ti:ough it does not add to the strength of the mixture, is" believed to increase its adhesiveness, and therefore to increase its practical value.

— Kerosene for Killing Suckers. —

If you make it yourself, boil abour lOgal of water in an iron kettle, and just before the boiling point, is reached add the fresh lime and the sulphur together, the sulphur having been made into a paste with a little water. The mixture should be constantly stirred and boiled till the sulphur is diseolved, this taking nearly ar hour. The salt may be put in at any time during the boiling. Add water, preferably hot, till the bUgal is made up. The pests attaclsed by lime aw 1 sulphur are peculiarly a kind ir regard to which prevention is batter than cure. A spray in tune saves nine. Kerosene emulsion is of great value tor the destruction of plant lie?, euch as apple lice, cherry lice, cabbage lies, currant hoe, and the lioe on tose-i, and in a general way it may be said that it should be bprayed on before the leaves curl.

Kerosene is very strong. Used a.one to kill insects it has killed many a tree at the same time. The operation was succcseml, but the tvoe*. died. Take 2gal of kerosene (coal-oil), ilb of v.-hale-oil soap or hard 6oap, and lgal of water. Boil the soap in the water till it di-solves. Then add it, boiling hot, to the oil, which, you have not kept too near the fire. Siir or beat i* vigorously until it thickens, just as a mayonnaise dressing <loe=, into a bulky, creamy mass. This emulsion will now keep indefinitely, ready for clilution. For winter use dilute with four or five times its quantity of water. In summer, on account of the tenderness ol the green foliage, dilute with 35 limes its quantity. Do not use 6O much as to permit the fluid to run down the trunk and settle about the Toote,. because it may kill the trees, especially if young. In a general way kerosene emiils:on is excellent for insects which suck and for those which have soft bodies Tobacco, in tihe form of -dry dust, 16 excellent for killing the .voollv aphis at the apple tree. Ifc is highly valuable as an ip^ctLcide. and has th< impcrtant merit of not injuring the plant or tree. Ite

merits have long been known, whether wed as a t?ea, or as a powder, or as a smudge, and Cowper sang its praise, with curious ohoioe of words and not impeooable rhyme, as "the drug a gardener wants to poison vermin tihat infest his plants." Paris green is fox insects that chow, and js fatail to the destructive potato-bug. It is also used to attack various caterpillars and bugs that are leaf-devourere. ' ■ Paris green also attacks the terrible codlin moth. The poison is put in the blossom end of the young apple within a week after tine blossom falls. It should be used in the proportion of a fifth of a pound of Paris green and three-fifths of a pound of lime to 4Qgal of water. London purple has much the same chemical composition as Paris green, but is more liable to injure foliage. — Bagging the Bagworm. — j Tht most destructive of all currant mii sects, the currant-worm, is best attacked I with hellebore, a powerful vegetable poison for insects that chew. It is applied as a dry powder mixed with a little flour and dusted on the plants tihrouigih a muslin bag, or in water, diluted loz to a. gallon, and sprayed. As a powder it should be applied while the morning dew is on. It i 6 also excellent for the rose-slug, cherry-slog, strawlbery and oahbaige-worm. Not all insects, not all worms and bugs, are bad. You maj be entertaining angels unawares. The little Ladybugs do no harm and a great deal of good, for they devour the lice. But beware of the pretty butterfly 1 Rs Existence controverts the angumenit that beauty ie ite own justification. The butterfly "Sitting from flower to flower" and looking angelic is probalbly laying eggs that will batch out evil worms. The bagworm, x which hangs its bags principally on, the red cedar, the arbour vitae and the willow, is destructive, but is easily, controlled. Pluck the bags, put them in a pile and burn them. One year s watchfulness will probably clear your place of them. . , A. very difficult insect to control is the rose-bug, which covers noimberlees yeses and peonies with crawling masses. It also attacks grape vines and fruit trees. Birds do not eat them. Spraying is useless Poison does not kill. The only way to do is to brush them off into basins of kerosene and then burn _ them. Gather ye rose-bugs while .ye may. The ourculio is an insect whion Ie? destroyed entire plum crops for yyar alre* year. It feeds on leaves and blossoms &.nd then attacks the fruit. Sprays and poisons are of slight efficacy, and the only thing to do is to go over the trees *t intervals of a few days for three weeks after the fruit sets and strike with a padded mallet on the trunks and longer 'branches. Vhe curculios drop, and are caught on sheets spread underneath. Some measurably control the ouroulio by putting the chicken yard around the plum trees, for the fowls pick the insects up When they drop, and catch a good many when they make their annual descent to burrow m the groun.l. Dig out and destroy the white grub at the root of the strawberry.: transfer your cabbage tiatoh to dean soil if black rot has appeared ; for the yellows in peaches you must ruthlessly out and burn. It is in all a hard task, this ot oatthng ■with the pests of . the garden: the blighting fungus, the leprous scale, the mseots that creep or crawl or walk or fly, that bit© or chew or suck. One must stock up with poisons as well as with seeds.— Washington Post.

It is estimated that the wet (season cost English strawberry-growers £450,000.