Pests of garden plants

    Every animal or creature endowed with life, that it has pleased the almighty in his infinite wisdom to create, has, without doubt, its useful purpose to serve, and yet how many of them are, and must be, regarded by man as ‘pests of the garden’- plagues that often hinder the progress of plant life, or destroy it outright, of which man would fain rid himself at a single stroke could he do so, even as one of the Caesars wished that the entire roman people had but one common neck, so that he might disencumber himself of the nation that groaned under his oppressive rule in a moment by just one sweeping blow of a trenchant sword.

If each and everything that is reckoned as a garden pest has some god given mission to carry out, it is natural to inquire what that mission may be. Is it to rouse God’s masterpiece to greater industry, greater watchfulness, and greater care than he would otherwise be disposed to employ were it all plain sailing-progress without a stumble over nature’s field, as easy as the passage of a ship over a sea scars rippled into wavelets by the gentle breathing of a western wind under a cloudless sky? We are taught and told that at the Fall God cursed the ground for man’s sake, and permitted thorns and thistles to grow in rank array among the herps that the earth up to this point had bountously yielded to furnish man with food. Man had to live a life of industry and toil, and is it not possible that the thorns and thistles were allowed to mingle with the herps of the field as blessings in disguise to compel him to that industry and toil which god had imposed on him as part of the penalty that he had to pay for his sin of disobediance to God’s comment? And if we can accept this view it is possible to accept the other also.

But be this as it may, it is impossible to deny that some of the animals that are classed among garden pests are useful in many ways that a taughtful mind will readily recognize. For example, let us take the mole which works on scene and hidden underground, and only marks his track and leaves his traces in the tiny hillocks, whose upheaval on Earth’s surface is caused by the earth that it removes from his galleries and passages, made by the little excavator as he works his way in darkness through the soil. The mole eats roots, it is true, and disturbs growing crops if it makes its passages under the ground in which they happen to be; but, on the other hand, his workings promote the drainage of the surface soil, and admits the air into the soil, and the mounds of earth which it throws up, when scattered over the surface, and especially over the surface of grassland, acts as a fertilizer, and promotes the growth of the grass. Thus moles are useful, and possibly everything that has life, and is endowed with capability of motion, has its use could we divine it.

Among pests of the garden in a secondary degree must be reckoned dogs and cats; dogs are more easily kept out, and may be trained to avoid being harmful to the ground, but cats, and especially our neighbor’s cats, having a propensity to meddle with ground that has been newly turned and made up, can not be so easily managed. Means and modes of checking the inroads of cats will be found in the pages that immediately follow, and also of dealing with mice and moles, which complete the list of four footed creatures that do damage to the garden in one way or another. 

Birds are highly detrimental to the well being of the garden. Fowls, if they unfortunately affect an enterance, play havoc by scrapping and scratching in quest of insect food, by digging shallow pits in dryish mould wherein to dust themselves, and by helping themselves to any green stuff that may be growing in a garden, especially the cabbage tribe, turnips, etc. Then some kinds of birds do infinite damage to fruit, quickly clearing even a well-laden tree of cherries in an incredibly short time; others, again, do damage to the young buds, this embowel promising pea-pods, strip currant bushes of their fruit, nip off the tops of young peas just above ground, and do much other damage which some say is counter balanced by the service rendered by some in clearing away caterpillars. The frequent discharge of a gun is the best deterrent for birds, but other ways of dealing with them will be shown presently.

The chief pest of the garden, however, are to be found among insects. The caterpillars of the white butterfly honeycomb our summer cabages; other caterpillars infest gooseberry and currant bushes; american blight (aphis lanigera) injures our apple trees; green and black fly batten on the tender shoots of a large variety of growing plants, including roses; earwigs lurk in the bloom of roses, dahlias, and other flowers that afford a hiding place for them; thrip red spider, and scale do an infinity of harm in greenhouses; and wasps, etc, eat our stone fruit. It is unnecessary to prolong the catalouge of insect pests. It is enough to say that suggestions for checking the ravages of many of them are offered in the fifth portion of this volume. It will be understood that it is only the ordinary garden plagues, and such as come immedeately under the notice of gardeners, that are touched on. Such insects as the potato beetle, which gave such trouble in america, and the phylloxera vitis, which at times has wrought such ravages on the vines in France, are not mentioned, for want of room. In a book of limited space it is impossible to deal with everything but it may be said that most things have been dealed with which would come under the notice of the ordinary gardener in his ordinary work.