Slush

“ Den one afternoon I ketch one267 of ’em diggin’ a lot er slushA outer one er my full casks. ’Course I vas mat, unt I dells him to get t’ hell out er dat, unt leave my slush alone. He don’t say nuthin’, but he schlings de pot at me. Den it vas me un him for it, un ve fight like two rhinosros.
A “Slush” in the merchant service is the name given to the coarse dripping, lumps of waste fat, etc., which the ship’s cook has over after preparing the men’s food. ”

“ Then again, if the day be wet, the slug works by day as well as by night. It is the sun and drought that he shuns, and not the light. Therefore the only effectual way to destroy slugs is to sow lime, in dust, and not slaked. The slug is wet, he has hardly any skin, his slime is his covering; the smallest dust of hot lime kills him; and a few bushels to the acre are sufficient. You must sow the lime at dusk; for then the slugs are sure to be out. Slugs come after a crop that has long afforded a great deal of shelter from the sun; such as peas and vetches. ”

“ If you glance at a fern clump as you ride along the road or climb the mountain steep, the yellow, withered fronds of an occasional plant, here and there painfully conspicuous amid the rich, dark, emerald green of its healthy companions, tell you where the grey slug—and a nasty, slimy little wretch it is—is busy at its evil work, drinking up, like consumption among the human race, the very heart’s blood, so to speak, of the fairest and finest plants it can find. ”

“ The slug will devour almost any garden plant, whether it be a flower or a vegetable. They lay lots of eggs in old rubbish heaps. Do you see the good of cleaning up rubbish? The slugs do more harm in the garden than almost any other single insect pest. You can discover them in the following way. There is a trick for bringing them to the surface of the ground in the day time. You see they rest during the day below ground. So just water the soil in which the slugs are supposed to be. How are you to know where they are? They are quite likely to hide near the plants they are feeding on. ”

“ I kill some things that other things may live. They cannot all have it their own way in my garden, and I must settle which side is to prevail. All the same, I do sometimes try to look at it from the slug's point of view. What does the slug think about it? Let us hope and believe that the slug does not think about it.
With what brutality, too, does the gardener fight against the prolific impulses of nature. The dead flowers must be picked off from the sweet peas; otherwise they give up work early. If you cut down the lupine spikes as soon as the beans have formed, you will get more spikes. ”

“ This very pond by which the first swallow appears is muddy enough, and surrounded with poached mud, for a herd of cattle drink from and stand in it. An elm overhangs it, and on the lower branches, which are dead, the swallows perch and sing just over the muddy water. A sow lies in the mire. But the sweet swallows sing on softly; they do not see the wallowing animal, the mud, the brown water; they see only the sunshine, the golden buttercups, and the blue sky of summer. This is the true way to look at this beautiful earth. ”

“ The slugs, which commit their depredations in the night, creep under the leaves in the morning, and by turning up the leaves you come at the slugs, and crush them, or carry them away. But besides the immense daily labour attending this, the slug, in a field sowed with wheat, has a clod to creep under at every foot, and will not go five feet to get under a cabbage-leaf. ”

“ When the slug is cold, the body of the slug may be solid and have a stringy or flaky appearance, and the face may be imperfect, some of the letters being poorly cast or blurred. The base of the slug usually will be good. ”

“ Ground sluices are natural gullies, answering the purpose of wooden sluices in localities where water is abundant for short periods only, and the construction of permanent sluices would not be judicious. In river mining, the current of a stream is turned aside, and sluices are erected in its bed for washing the dirt there accumulated. ”

“ The slug, called Succinea, is not strictly aquatic, but lives in damp places, and may be seen in full activity far from rivers, in meadows where the grass is wet with rain or dew; but shells of the genera Limnaea, Planorbis, Paludina, Cyclas, and others, requiring to be constantly in the water, are extremely exceptional in the loess, occurring only at the bottom of the deposit where it begins to alternate with ancient river-gravel on which it usually reposes. ”

“ An ample stream once held its winding course among them, but becoming choked at the further end with weeds and fallen leaves, and branches broken by the wind, it spread into a marsh, tenanted alike by the slow, creeping blind-worm, and water-newt, the black slug, and frogs of portentous size. ”

“ The slugs will desert everything else for Lettuces, and can be caught in numbers on and around them at night. So if you have a sluggy garden you must catch all the slugs you can, and also dust your seedlings with soot or wood-ash. The proper time to do this is after sunset, when the leaves are a little damp with dew. When the Lettuces begin to grow up, the slugs will leave them alone, and then the rain will wash away the slight dust of ash or soot from the outside leaves. ”

“ A sluice is where water is made to run through a ditch into a trough that has cleats nailed across the bottom to check the water and form ripples. Into this the pay-dirt is shoveled, and the water flowing through it leaves the gold at the bottom and carries the dirt away. ”

“ The legitimate sport is the night hunt, the search, by the light of a lantern, of cabbage or lettuce leaves cast down in the favourite haunts of the slug. On these, on a warm night after a light rain, it may be found by the score—of all sizes, from the tiny glistening speck no larger than a pin’s head, to the full-grown animal as long and as thick as a man’s little finger. The slug-hunter recognises two species of slugs. There are others he knows, notably the great black slug of the woods, but these concern him not. ”

“ Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse, but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay) , mixed with soot, a little sand and water. ”

“ CHILDREN'S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS. IX. THE UNWRITTEN TREATY.
"Be careful," said the worm to the slug, "there is one of those nasty birds over there. What ugly things they are!"
"Not half so ugly as men. Ugh!" said the slug.
"Men are big, not ugly. They don't eat worms."
"But they cut them in two with spades."
"Only by accident. There is nothing so ugly as a bloated over-grown bird eating a slender delicate worm."
"Except," said the slug, "a monstrous man crushing a tender slug under his clumsy hoofs. Birds I can tolerate. They are not so big as men." ”

“ They resemble large slugs with an underside a little like the flattened rockers of a rocking-horse, slugs between 20 and 40 feet long. They are like flat-sided slugs, slugs of spirit, who raise an enquiring snout, like the snout of a dogfish, into the air. ”

“ Slugs.—A sharp watch should be kept over all slugs, and constant visits paid to the garden at daybreak for their destruction. If fresh cabbage leaves are strewed about in the evening the slugs will congregate under them, and in the morning they may be gathered up and dropped into strong brine. The ground may also be dusted with fresh lime, which is fatal to them, but in wet weather the lime soon loses its power. ”

“ A good many different kinds of slugs are found in Great Britain. The largest of all is the great gray slug, which often grows to a length of more than six inches. Then the black slug is very common in many parts of the country. It is not always black, however, for one may often find examples which are brown, or yellow, or gray, or even white. The milky slug, which has a thick creamy slime, is plentiful everywhere. ”

“ During the mild weather of winter, slugs are in constant motion preying on plants and green wheat. Their covering of slime prevent the escape of animal heat, and hence they are enabled to ravage when their brethren of the shell, who are more sensible of cold, lie dormant. ”

“ But during the winter, when the stream-banks are embossed in snow, and the streams themselves are chilled nearly to the freezing-point, so that the snow falling into them in stormy weather is not wholly dissolved, but forms a thin, blue sludge, thus rendering the current opaque—then he seeks the deeper portions of the main rivers, where he may dive to clear water beneath the sludge. Or he repairs to some open lake or mill-pond, at the bottom of which he feeds in safety. ”

“ The production of a mucus-thread, as a means of progression through the air, has long been known in the Land-Slugs, and has been observed in seven genera, representing Limacidæ, Arionidæ, and Philomycidæ.
The Spinning-Slug (Limax filans) of authors is a myth, the habit being general, extending possibly to all Slugs of the families named. The animals are occasionally seen descending from trees, fences, rafters in greenhouses, &c, and they are easily induced to descend from small exposed objects on which they may be placed. ”

“ The long shining line with which the creature marked its path is the slime which proceeds from its body, and with which it is enabled to glide smoothly over sand or gravel that would otherwise injure it. I have said more on this subject than I should otherwise have done, because I wish to point out to you that even a creature so humble and so despicable [Pg 398] as a slug, is as curiously and wonderfully made, and displays the power and wisdom of its Creator, as decidedly, as the noblest and most beautiful animal. ”

“ The white slug or snail is likewise very destructive to young turnip crops, by rising out of the holes of the soils, on wet and dewy mornings and evenings. Rolling the ground with a heavy implement, before the sun rises, has been advised as a means of destroying them in these cases. Slugs of this sort are likewise very destructive, in some districts, to the roots of corn crops, during the day-time, in the early spring months, while they lie concealed in the ground, by eating and devouring them ”

“ In October, or after, draw the sluice of the first made pond, and lay it as dry as possible you can. It may be the sluice, especially if the pond be many acres, will not vent the water suddenly. That is of no great import, because, as the waters fall, you will have opportunity of fishing with nets, and so clear the fish by degrees; which left to the last, will be too great a burden to clear, and will not be done without damage; besides, the hurry will disorder every thing. If the sluice will not vent all the water from the pan, a labourer or two will soon throw it out with scuppets. ”

“ The gardener one day brought in a testacella, or shelled slug. It fed upon earth-worms and was quite unlike the ordinary black or grey slug, of which we have, alas! countless thousands preying upon all the green things of the earth. This shelled slug was yellow, and seemed able to elongate its body very differently to any other species. The shell was quite small, a simple dome-shaped plate upon the anterior part of the body. I kept it for some weeks on damp moss under a tumbler, but it was often able to escapep. ”

“ Boosey was exceedingly agreeable, and after inquiring about his friends in Melbourne, asked me to read the article I had brought. After giving a few preliminary coughs I began:
‘SLUGS.
‘“Slugs eat cabbage. They forage at night. In the morning they creep home. They are afraid of gardeners. Gardeners hate slugs because they eat the things in the garden. To catch slugs you must get up early. The captives may be thrown into a neighbouring garden. This annoys the man next door. The slug is a very quiet animal. ”

“ And sometimes one may dig up a very curious slug—testacella—which feeds on earthworms, and follows them down to the very bottom of their burrows. When the weather is cold, this slug makes a kind of cocoon of earth and slime, and lies fast asleep inside it, often for many months at a time. ”

“ The position and soil it most seems to enjoy may be readily afforded in any garden, as we shall shortly see; but, so far as my experience goes, the slugs are its most persistent enemies. Especially when in flower do they make long journeys to reach it; they go over sand and ashes with impunity, and often the beautiful tufts of bloom are all grazed off in one night. ”

“ Many such shaws in a field give it an unsightly appearance, but beyond this there is no great harm done after all, for as the slug seldom begins its work until the plant is large and well forward, the tubers underground, though they may be of smaller size than their neighbours that have escaped the slug’s attentions, are yet sound and wholesome food enough either for man or beast. ”

“ The slug at the bottom of the cabbage-stalk thinks the slug an inch up the stalk very high, and the slug on the stalk regards the slug on the leaf as perilously advanced, whilst the slug on the leaf considers the snail on the leaf-end as occupying an equivocal position. ”

“ Provoke me as you have suggested, and I’ll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most resemble—a slug, Binet; a fat, slimy body; foulness without soul and without intelligence. ”