Bug Problems? EVERY beginner is apt to meet the discouragements that come with the appearance of insect and fungous pests in nearly every garden at some time. You may wonder why your lovely flowers or your fat vegetables, your stately Hollyhocks, or your practical potatoes seem, of a sudden, not only to stop growing but actually to wither or decay. You will have to look closely at their leaves and search around their roots for the trouble that is brewing. You will find that insects or fungous growths have appeared to disturb their peace. Indeed almost every plant under cultivation is subject to some blight or pest from which, in its wild state, the plant has been free. However, there is now hardly a single plant ailment that we are either unfamiliar with or unable to cope with, wherefore liquid spraying, or the application of liquid fungicides and insecticides to affected trees, shrubs, vines, and plants, has become an expedient of the greatest importance to everyone having a lawn or garden. It is a disheartening thing to see the plants you have worked over and nurtured turn sere-leaved out of season, droop and die, when you have looked forward to their mature beauty and usefulness with all the hope the heart of a garden-maker can hold.
In the first class of bug problems, we have the Flea-beetle, the Potato-bug, the Cabbage-worm, the Cinch-bug, and various other beetles and injurious larvae, also Grasshoppers. Among the second class are to be found the moth parents of the Cut-worm, the Tassel-worm, the white Grub-worm’s moth, the Onion-maggot, Mapleborer, and Rose-bug. Spraying is easily accomplished even on the smallest premises. Excellent and inexpensive apparatus is offered in the market. The pump should be strongly made and for a small garden, a hand sprayer is sufficient.
The backpack style of the sprayer, carried by straps on the shoulders, is especially good and will throw a spray fully fifteen feet. This can be used to equal advantage on fruits and vegetables. we have used one like this
In spraying, as high a pressure as possible is advisable, as the mist-like spray produced thereby reaches every part of the plant. Indeed thoroughness in spraying is one of the essentials to successfully combating plant pests, for any hit-or-miss program renders the final result of little lasting value. Timeliness in spraying is a matter of the utmost importance. The gardener should make his preparations early, and from time to time study up the subject so he may be forewarned as well as forehanded. One good way to keep posted on such matters is to study the catalogs of manufacturers and by reading agricultural bulletins, as year by year spraying apparatus is improved and simplified, and many valuable spraying formulas are produced to combat with success new plant pests.
