1856. To Prevent Grub in Onions

1856.    To Prevent Grub in Onions. Make some strong lime-water, add to it as much soot as will make it into a thin paint, and water the crop with it the moment the maggot appears. This soot mixture is so stimulating a manure that it should always be used to increase the weight of the crop. House-slops mixed with lime and soot would be still more powerful, both to destroy maggot and improve the plant; but unless rain followed immediately, it would be advisable to drench the ground with pure water the day after application. Ground intended for a crop of large onions should be prepared in the autumn, and after being dug over, should be watered with a mixture of sulphuric acid and water, made so strong as to burn the tongue. This will destroy every animal in the soil, and the winter rains will wash it away entirely before spring.

1857. To Prevent Attacks of Bed Spider

1857.    To Prevent Attacks of Bed Spider. In cases where the infested plants can be well syringed, a few times repeating this operation will cause them to disappear. When this cannot be resorted to with safety, the flues or pipes may be washed over with sulphur, and should be kept warm to raise an effluvia in the house, which will soon eradicate these pests. If a little soft soap is mixed with the water to syringe with, it will prove obnoxious to many other insects as well as red spider, and will not injure the foliage of the plant, providing the plants are not syringed when the scorching hot sun is upon them.

1858. To Kill Thrips on Cucumbers and Melon Plants

1858.    To Kill Thrips on Cucumbers and Melon Plants. To kill thrips on cucumbers and melon plants, they should be syringed with tobacco water, and a little sulphur added, or with a decoction of elder leaves; either of these repeated a few times will suffice; or the infested parts may' be dusted over with flowers of sulphur, and allowed to remain on for 3 or 4 days, when it should be washed off thoroughly with a syringe. (See No. 1850 (To Remove Mildew from Roses, Pelargoniums, Etc).)

1859. To Destroy Maggot in Roses

1859.    To Destroy Maggot in Roses. A bushel of unslacked lime in powder, 1/2 pound sulphur also in powder; mix these well whilst dry, then add water to make it about as thick as molasses, and boil for 1 hour; then add just enough soot, moistened to the same consistence, to darken the color; lay this on With a brush all over, stock and head, in the latter part of March.

1860. To Destroy Moss on Fruit Trees

1860.      To Destroy Moss on Fruit Trees. Every second year fruit trees should be well scrubbed with a scrubbing brush dipped in strong brine, so as to moisten every part of the bark of the stem and branches. This not only destroys the moss, but insects of all kinds, and is beneficial to all trees, whereas applications of lime choke up the respiratory pores, and sometimes produce canker.