teacher and pupils. The garden diary should begin as soon as the
snow disappears from the garden and be continued until all the work is
completed in the autumn, and the garden again blanketed in snow.

The main points to be safeguarded are:

1. Thorough cultivation and fertilization.

2. The best available seed carefully planted. Guard against thick sowing
and deep covering.

3. Frequent cultivation and careful thinning while the plants are quite
small.

4. Vigilance in detecting the appearance of cutworms or other injurious
insects and promptness in combating them.

5. Protection of the garden against injury from dogs, pigs, poultry, and
English sparrows.

6. Failure of some plots, through the owner's absence from school for
long periods.

COMBATING GARDEN PESTS

CUTWORMS

In gardens where the soil is light or sandy, cutworms are most likely to
be troublesome. Watch for them about the time that the plants are nicely
above ground. They come up at night and cut the young plants off just
above the ground. They are about an inch long, gray and brown, fat and
greasy-looking. To protect the plants put one quarter of a pound of
paris-green with twenty-five pounds of slightly moistened bran, using a
little sugar in the water and stirring the paris-green into the bran
very thoroughly. If too wet, add more dry bran. It should crumble
through the fingers. Sprinkle a little of this mixture with the fingers
along the row close to the plants. The cutworms eat this poisoned bran
quite readily. Care must be exercised in using this poison lest poultry
should get at it. On the other hand, poultry should not be allowed to
get into the garden. Wrapping a piece of paper around the stem when
transplanting young plants will help to save them from cutworms.

ROOT MAGGOTS

Root maggots of cabbage, radish, and onions are the larvae of flies
similar in appearance to house-flies but a little smaller. When the
plants are young, the flies lay their white eggs on the stem close to
the ground. When the eggs hatch, the larvae crawl down under the ground
and cause the plants to decay. The wilting of the leaves is the first
sign of the trouble. Prevention is better than cure in this case. Dust
some dry white hellebore along the rows of onions or radishes and around
the cabbage plants; or, for radishes, make a decoction of insect powder
(Pyrethrum), four ounces to one gallon of water, and pour around the
root, using half a teacupful to e