CHAPTER XV

INSECTICIDES—TOOL-ROOM

The enemies of growing things have certainly increased alarmingly of late years. I cannot recall that formerly any insect was to be found in either vegetable or flower garden, other than the potato bug, currant-worm, cabbage-worm, and the green worm and small black beetle on the Rose; but now there are so many horrid creatures lying in wait until a plant is in perfection, to cut the stalk, or eat the root, or eat the pith from the stalk so that it falls, or to devour the leaves and eat the blossoms, that insecticides and a spraying machine are as necessary to a garden as a spade. For a small garden a spraying machine holding from a couple of quarts to a gallon, can be bought for a trifling sum, that will answer the purpose very well For a larger garden, a good air-pump, costing from five dollars upwards, will be found an excellent investment.

One of the best insecticides is Bordeaux mixture, which can either be bought or made. I have twenty-five gallons made at a time and keep it always on hand. The following is the receipe:

Three pounds of blue vitriol in coarse crystals; three pounds of unslaked lime. Slake the lime in two and one-half gallons of water; pour two and one-half gallons of water over the blue vitriol in another receptacle, and let both stand over night. In the morning stir the blue vitriol until all is dissolved; then let two persons pour simultaneously the lime water and the blue vitriol into the same receptacle, and add twenty gallons of water; stir well before filling the spraying machine.

Bordeaux mixture is to be used for rust, mildew, and all kinds of blight, whenever the leaves of plants have a tendency to turn black. Hollyhocks seem to be universally attacked by rust. Spraying the plants at the end of April, and again in the middle of May, should entirely prevent this. I have found that Bordeaux mixture prevents the leaves of Monkshood from turning black and falling off, if the plants are well sprayed with it about the middle of June and the first of July.

Phloxes grown in rather shady places will, in damp weather, fall victims to mildew on the leaves. Spraying with Bordeaux mixture the end of June and middle of July should prevent this. Roses also have a tendency in warm, damp weather to mildew, which can be prevented by spraying the plants with Bordeaux mixture.

Kerosene emulsion may also be prepared, and is excellent for killing, both the small green aphids that often cover the leaves of Roses, and other hard, scaly insects. Following is the receipe:

Put one cake of laundry soap shaved fine into one gallon of water. When dissolved, add two gallons of kerosene oil. This makes the emulsion.

For spraying, use one quart of the emulsion in fourteen quarts of water. Be sure that this is very thoroughly mixed before filling the sprayer.

Powdered hellebore, if dissolved in the proportion of one pound of powder to one gallon of water, will destroy both the green worm on the Rose leaf and the small dark beetle that eats the Roses. It will also dispose of green worms on other plants.

Slug-shot dissolved, one-half pound of powder to one gallon of water, will, if used the latter part of April and several times in May, keep the Roses comparatively free from insects. Slug-shot and hellebore may also be used dry and blown on to the plants with a bellows.

I have used Hellebore in my garden for many years without harm to anything except the worms and beetles. But recently I heard of a lady who was severely poisoned in using dry Hellebore. The wind blew it into her face; perhaps some was inhaled, and serious illness resulted. I mention the fact here, to caution all who use it not to let either the spray or the powder come in contact with the skin. Some persons may be susceptible to the poison while others are not,—presenting a case of what the doctors call an “idiosyncrasy.”

Paris green, mixed in the proportion of two tablespoonfuls to three quarts of water and used as a spray, will destroy a beetle that sometimes appears upon the Gourd vines.

Tobacco water will kill the black aphids which appear on the stems and leaves of hardy Chrysanthemums. It will also kill green aphids. This spray is made by filling an ordinary pail lightly, not pressed down, with tobacco stems. Pour as much cold water into the pail as it will hold; let it stand for three hours, when it is ready to use in the spraying machine. This mixture will be good for only twenty-four hours.

Tobacco spray will also destroy the large red aphid (I call it this for want of, perhaps, the proper name) that has recently appeared in some localities upon the stems of the Rudbeckia (Golden Glow) and of the single hardy Sunflower, just below the blossom.

The enemy of the Box is the white spider. The insect spins its web on the Box and works from the inside. If the branches are pulled aside, the inside of the plant will be found full of dead leaves in the vicinity of the web. Recently I read in a well-known gardening monthly, that this spider could be destroyed by spraying with kerosene emulsion. I have some fine Box trees, and there were several white spider-webs on each. Watering with a very strong force of water had been tried without effect. Upon reading the article in the monthly and finding that the spider was certainly causing disaster which might be fatal, I proceeded to have the trees sprayed with kerosene emulsion, using it of the same strength as for Roses. In fact, the sprayer was not re-filled, as there was enough left in it since last using it on the Roses. About three days after the Box had been sprayed, large, unsightly brown patches appeared on the trees, showing that the emulsion had killed the leaves wherever it touched them. The spider was not harmed.

I mention this experience as an example of the danger of taking all the directions found in horticultural publications as gospel truth. Nor should an amateur gardener ever be tempted to trifle with plant medicines. I have a certain friend whose affection for her Roses is more profound than her knowledge of how to treat their natural diseases. Observing last summer that one of her most cherished Crimson Ramblers was covered with aphids, she concluded to spray it with “something.” A bottle of carbolic acid being most available, she tested its merits at once. The efficacy of carbolic acid as a poison was proved beyond a doubt, for the insects became singularly dead in a day or two, and so did the leaves; they fell off together. There was nothing left but the forlorn stems and branches, looking like some freak of the vegetable kingdom.

TOOL-ROOM

It is of the greatest importance to have a tool-room or closet according to the size of the place, and to require all implements to be kept there when not in actual use. There should be shelves across one end or side, where shears, trowels, garden cord, clippers, watering-cans, mallet, various mixtures for spraying, oil-cans, keys for turning on the water, twine and all the smaller things one uses, may be found at a moment’s notice. Garden sticks painted green, in three sizes, three and a half and four feet long, and five-eighths of an inch in diameter, and thicker ones an inch in diameter for Dahlias, should be kept on hand in barrels. They can be bought of lumber-dealers in New York, where they are known as “dowels.” They come in bundles of one hundred, costing from sixty cents to a dollar and twenty-five cents a bundle, according to size, unpainted, and the men can paint them on rainy days. The lawn mowers and the roller (which should be a heavy one) can also be kept in the tool-room. Rakes, both iron and wooden, hoes, spades and shovels, the latter both long-handled and short-handled, are best kept hung up along one side of the closet, where the men can see at a glance what they want.

There should also be a pickaxe and a crowbar for taking out refractory stones, and, most necessary of all things in a garden, the wheelbarrow should be kept here, too. A sickle and a scythe must not be forgotten.

If the garden is large, a two-wheel tip-cart will prove a great saver of labor in carting manure and soil and in the removal of debris.

On a particular shelf in my tool-room I keep my private trowel and flower scissors, to which are attached long red ribbons as a warning of “Hands off!” to others. There is also a clipper which I often use in walking about to trim a bit here and there from a shrub or a climbing Rose.

If a scrap-book be kept, in which everything of interest pertaining to the garden can be pasted or written, it will be found a great help. In this way items about fertilizers, insecticides, special treatment of plants, with copies of lists ordered, can be preserved, and also, most interesting of all, notes of when the different plants bloom each year. I find the following under date of October 18, 1901:

“To-day, though ice has formed three times, I have filled nineteen vases with flowers. They are Phlox, Larkspur, Monkshood, Salvia, Nasturtium, Roses, Mignonette and Chrysanthemums.”

After trying many kinds of gloves for gardening, including the rubber ones, I now use only old Suede gloves; they give sufficient covering and permit more freedom of movement to the hands and fingers than those of heavier material. It would be quite impossible to transplant tiny seedlings while wearing gloves with clumsy finger-tips.

Unless a woman possesses a skin impervious to wind and sun, she is apt to come through the summer looking as red and brown as an Indian; and if one is often out in the glare, about the only headgear that can be worn to prevent this, is the old-fashioned sunbonnet. With its poke before and cape behind, protecting the neck, one really cannot become sunburned, and pink ones are not so bad. Retired behind its friendly shelter, you are somewhat deaf to the world; and at the distant house, people may shout to you and bells be rung at you, and, if your occupation be engrossing, the excuse “no one can hear through a sunbonnet,” must be accepted.