This section is from the book "Facts Worth Knowing", by Robert Kemp Philip. Also available from Amazon: Inquire Within for Anything You Want to Know.
Take sulphur and tobacco dust in equal quantities, and strew it over the trees of a morning when the dew is on them. The insects will disappear in a few days. The trees should then be syringed with a decoction of elder leaves.
The best preventive against mildew is to keep the plant subject to it occasionally syringed with a decoction of elder leaves, which will prevent the fungus growing on them.
Dip a piece of wool or cotton in oil, and slightly tie it round the stalk, about a foot from the earth. The stakes which you will put into the ground to support your plants must also be surrounded by the oiled cotton or wool, or the insects will climb up them to the blossoms and tender tops of the stems.
M. Braun, of Vienna, gives the following as a cheap and easy mode of effecting it: Mix one ounce of flowers of sulphur with one bushel of sawdust; scatter this over the plants infected with these insects, and they will soon be freed, though a second application may possibly be necessary.
 
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