Plant louse

“ Almost every day the glass should be lifted entirely off. Care must be taken never to let the soil or flats become dried out; toward the end of the month, if it is bright and warm, begin watering towards evening instead of in early morning, as you should have been doing through the winter. If proper attention is given to ventilation and moisture, there will not be much danger from the green plant-louse (aphis) and white-fly, but at the first sign of one fight them to a finish. Use kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, tobacco preparations, or Aphine. ”

“ It has no need of leaves to carry on the process of making food. Some parasites with green leaves, like the mistletoe, take the crude sap from the host-plant and assimilate it in their own green leaves. Plants that are nourished by decaying matter in the soil are called saprophytes. Indian Pipe and Beech-Drops are examples of this. They need no green leaves as do plants that are obliged to support themselves. ”

“ Usually, however, the natural enemies of the louse seriously reduce its numbers by the time the vine ceases its growth in the fall, and the few remaining lice, finding no more succulent and suitable leaves, seek the roots. ”

“ It attacks the foliage and does great damage. This may be due to lack of moisture with house plants. I do not mean lack of watering, but a dry condition of the air of the room. Often just a spray of clear water is sufficient to rid the plant of the mites.
"Roses have more troubles than any one other flower. The rose bush may have lice or it may have a little green bug that jumps very quickly and so gets its name of leaf-hopper. Kerosene emulsion is good to use. Often slugs will feed upon the surface of the leaves. A dusting of lime over the leaves keeps these feeders away. ”

“ Water a plant when it needs it. Keep the soil moist but not soaked. If plants are beginning to decay or a mould is coming on the surface of the soil, the trouble usually is over watering. At such a time let the soil of the pot or box dry out. Then water carefully after that. If the pot is always damp or has become green you may know that the trouble is either too much water or poor drainage."
"What pests are likely to attack our plants?" questioned Elizabeth.
"Lice and scale troubles are the chief pests of the house plants. You all know plant lice. Use kerosene emulsion for these. ”

“ There are two very good reasons why some classes of plants cannot be well grown continuously in the same piece of ground. One is the depletion of available plant food, the other the formation of injurious compounds by the plants, or the gradual increase of fungoid, bacterial or animate pests in the soil, which finally become abundant enough to seriously hinder growth. Different plants take the plant foods, as nitrogen, lime, potash, phosphates, etc., in different proportion. ”

“ These sap the vitality of the plants and check their progress. If you dig up the soil a few inches and mix in it the fresh clipped grass from the lawn or a bit of very old manure you can offset this evil.
“The minute you find mildew on a plant, fight it, or it will spread so rapidly to other plants that you will find it well nigh impossible to kill it. In a very short time, your most beautiful flowers will be nothing but a memory. Powder your diseased plants with soot and sulphur nor care for their looks as long as you save them in the end. ”

“ When used on light dry land it tends to make the land drier, since it destroys the humus which so largely assists in keeping water in the soil. Lime is a base and neutralizes the acid materials present in badly drained meadows and boggy pastures. Weeds, therefore, which need sour conditions for development are checked by liming and the better grasses and clovers are encouraged. It also sets free potash and possibly other useful plant food-constituents of the soil. Liming tends to produce earlier crops and destroys the fungus which causes finger-and-toe or club-root among turnips and cabbages. ”

“ This mode of treatment is, then, to grow the plants in a rich loamy soil, kept open, as it is called, by the addition of lime rubbish; and to give the plants water all the year, but more moderately when they are in a dormant, than when [Pg 372] they are in a growing state. They should also have as much air and light as possible. The water should never be suffered to stand in the saucer of any succulent plant ”

“ Whenever any crop shows signs of root disease, or soil disease, it is particularly important that another crop be grown on the place.
See that the disease or insect is not bred on weeds or other plants that are botanically related to the crop you grow. If the wild mallow, or plant known to children as “cheeses” (Malva rotundifolia) , is destroyed, there will be much less difficulty with hollyhock rust. Do not let the cabbage club-root disease breed on wild turnips and other mustards, or black-knot on plum sprouts and wild cherries, or tent-caterpillars on wild cherries and other trees. ”

“ The difficulty is very often to know where to draw the line. Probably no flowering plant is quite independent of the labour and work of its neighbours. As we have tried to show in another chapter, a long preliminary cultivation by bacteria, lichens, and mosses is required before flowering plants can develop on bare rock. That is also necessary in all cases where the soil is mineral or inorganic, without any organic dust or fragments of vegetable or animal matter. Bacteria must always begin the work by preparing nitrates and other salts. ”

“ These compact food-charged stems take up their position well below the ground, out of reach of intense heat or drought, and during the favourable season send up rapidly into the air their leaves and{117} flowers, after which they remain dormant till the following year.
It has been seen that unless a plant is a parasite or saprophyte, using as food ready-made organic material, it is necessary that it should possess a sufficient expanse of green (i.e., chlorophyll-bearing) tissue for the purpose of assimilation. This is the essential function of the leaves ”

“ When a single plant once gets root-hold in pasture land, it spreads with amazing rapidity, damaging and crowding out the grass in all directions, so that whenever and wherever it appears its utter and thorough extirpation, whatever the labour and cost, should be insisted upon with the least possible delay. When plucked by the hand the plant emits a fœtid, sickening smell, all trace of which is only effaced from the fingers by a very thorough washing indeed. ”

“ If any one doubts this, just try to raise the plants without mulch, and note how some disease will make its appearance. The plant will stand considerable sun, however, with heavy enough mulch. And the more sun it can take without harm, the better the root growth will be. Too much shade will show in a spindling top and slender leaves, and invariable smallness of root growth, for, let it be borne in mind always, that the plant must derive more or less food from the top, and it is here that the fungi in numerous forms proceed to attack. ”

“ What it really consists of is decayed vegetable matter and it is always found forming the top soil of virgin, or uncultivated land. It is present in large amounts in woodlands where the falling leaves and surface growth lie on the ground, year after year, and decay and form what is technically known as leaf mould. We know how admirably it is adapted to the growing of house plants, and its value is often erroneously attributed to the plant food it is supposed to contain, but its great value is not so much in its food content as its influence on the soil with which it is combined ”

“ A small portion of air to be admitted on fine days, to purify the atmosphere of the house. Keep the surface of the soil in the pots free from weeds, as also from moss and lichen; but when doing so do not loosen the soil so as to injure the roots near the surface. Keep every plant free from dead leaves, and all climbing plants neatly tied up. The Achimenes, Clerodendrons, Erythrinas, Gloxinias, and the various bulbs will now be approaching a state of repose, and therefore will require but little or no water. ”

“ At nine o'clock A.M., even well-watered plants may begin to wilt, showing that they require shade, which may be supplied by inverted flower-pots, old berry-baskets, shingles or boards. A handful of weeds, grass, or even of dry earth, thrown on the crown of the plant in the morning, and removed by five P.M., is preferable to nothing. Anything is better than stolidly sticking a plant in the ground and leaving it alone just long enough to die. Many, on the other hand, kill their plants with kindness. They dose the young things with guano, unfermented manure, and burn them up. ”

“ Thus there are many burrows and holes, so that there is no want of air in the soil, which is indeed necessary both for these creatures and also for the roots of the plants.
Rain comes down through the soil, carrying with it carbonic acid, mineral salts, and also germs or bacteria, which form perhaps the most important population of all.
No work could be carried on without their help; it is bacteria which, at every stage of decay, assist in breaking up 86 leaves, twigs, insects' bodies, worm-casts, and other manures. ”

“ The luminous rays also promote the production of green tissue, the green matter of all vegetables. Gardeners blanch certain plants by raising them in the dark. They thus obtain plants of a pale yellow, spindling, without strength or crispness. They are attacked by a true chlorosis, and waste away, as if sprung from barren sand. The sun also aids the transpiration of plants, and the constant renewal of healthy moisture in their tissues. On failure of the evaporation of moisture, the plant tends to grow dropsical, and its leaves fall, from weakness of the stem. ”

“ No irrigation is resorted to during the dry season. Although it is possible that good might result, at least to the welfare of the plant and the size of the crop, I suspect that after a long time an abundant and steady supply of water would result in a decrease in the amount of alkaloids. Mr. Lohse has tried the experiment of mulching at the end of the wet season with a few inches of banana leaves or other refuse, with excellent effect upon the plants during the succeeding dry season. ”

“ As boisterous winds, heavy rains, and other atmospheric changes occur about this time, it is advisable to draft the choicest out-door greenhouse plants to their winter quarters. Each plant to be carefully examined, dead leaves removed, and any defects in the soil or drainage of the pots to be remedied. If worm-casts, or other indications of the presence of worms, appear on the surface of the soil, by carefully turning the ball of soil out of the pot they can generally be picked out. ”

“ Poor plant nutrition increases the water cost of every pound of dry matter produced.
Using foliar fertilizers requires a little caution and forethought. Spinach, beet, and chard leaves seem particularly sensitive to foliars (and even to organic insecticides) and may be damaged by even half-strength applications. And the cabbage family coats its leaf surfaces with a waxy, moisture-retentive sealant that makes sprays bead up and run off rather than stick and be absorbed. ”

“ Rot is well known to occur most frequently on land which has been irrigated during summer, for at this season any excess of moisture is peculiarly injurious to the economy of a plant.
When plants by heat and moisture are stimulated to increased exertion on a poor soil, they acquire bulk without having it in their power to obtain at the same time those saline matters which constitute a healthy plant, becoming in fact, to the eye of an inexperienced person, thriving vegetables, while to the palate they prove wersh and watery. ”

“ If the seed is sown on a small patch where a heap of brushwood or grass has been burnt, the plants will not be so troubled with beetles. I saw this in an old newspaper, tried it, and was surprised at the result, not a cabbage plant was eaten by the bugs. The way is to prepare a small piece of ground, and then collect a heap of dry grass and undergrowth, enough to leave a good deal of ash. Burn this and then lightly rake in the ashes and sow your seed. ”

“ The plants were dwarfed, foliage wrinkled and rusty, and fruit misshapen, like small, gnarly apples. In all such instances I believe in tonic treatment, of wood-ashes, bone-dust, guano, and fertilizers of like nature, used with care. Plants do not need over-doses or over-feeding any more than we do ourselves. When a few plants are diseased, I believe in rigorously rooting them out and burning them. If a field is affected, as soon as possible turn the plants under, and renovate the land with clover, buckwheat, a light dressing of lime, and thorough exposure to the air, light, and frost. ”

“ It is probable that nearly half the plants of our fields, moors, and forests entertain such fungi in their root-tissues. The curious, and long-known nodules on the roots of leguminous plants—peas, beans, clover, etc.—are filled with bacteria which enable these plants to avail themselves of the free nitrogen of the air, and so enrich the soil with nitrogenous substances. ”

“ If left in a foul state they spread the infection to all around. In the space at our command it is only possible to notice a few of the garden pests, and we begin with one of the most frequent and troublesome of plant foes. ”

“ If the disease is in the growing crop, it will be made evident by the drooping of the leaves under the mid-day sun, leaves of diseased plants drooping more than those of healthy ones, while they will usually have a bluer cast. Should this disease show itself, set the cultivator going immediately, and follow with the hoe, drawing up fresh earth around the plants, which will encourage them to form new fibrous roots; should they do this freely, the plants will be saved, as the attacks of the insect are usually confined to the coarse, branching roots. ”