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Household and Garden Pests: Mosquito

To Prevent Mosquito Bites. - Dilute oil of pennyroyal with water, or make an infusion of pennyroyal leaves and apply to the hands and face, or rub the bruised leaves on the skin.

Or apply camphorated spirits, or a mixture of 1 part of carbolic acid with 3 parts of sweet oil. Take care that this does not enter the eyes or mouth or any cuts or burns on the skin.

Or use a mixture of 3 ounces of sweet oil, ounce of creosote, and ounce of pennyroyal.

To Cure Mosquito Bites. - Apply aqua ammonia or salt and water or a decoction of tobacco or dilute carbolic acid.

Or crushed smartweed leaves put on with a bandage.

Or a mixture of 2 ounces of spermaceti, ounce of white wax, 1 ounce of camphor, and 2 ounces of olive oil. Melt with gentle heat and stir vigorously. Preserve in covered jars for use.

Plant castor beans about the house.

These are said to repel mosquitoes.

ORCHARD, FARM, AND GARDEN PESTS Every farmer or family living in suburban or rural locations should invest in a good, practical spraying "The Compressed-air Sprayer." outfit and have in readiness the necessary ingredients for the different kinds of solutions used for spraying quickly and conveniently. Such an outfit will save its cost many times over in the course of a year on any farm, or even in a vegetable garden, flower garden, or ordinary lawn with shade trees and shrubbery. We quote from Dr. Wilhelm Miller, editor of the Garden Magazine, as follows: "The ideal way for you to insure yourself against all these troubles is to get a spraying outfit, costing about $7.50. "I like best the compressed-air sprayers, because I am lazy, and pumping is hard work. With a dozen strokes of the plunger I can charge the machine in half a minute, and it will work automatically from six to fifteen minutes, according to the nozzle opening. It will spray three gallons with only two chargings. This is enough to cover a quarter of an acre of potatoes or strawberries. "Seven dollars and a half may seem a lot of money, but a compressed-air sprayer saves its value the first year in the larger and better crops that you get. The outfits that cost less are generally more expensive of time or material, or both. Moreover, a good spraying outfit is invaluable if you keep chickens, because the best way to keep down lice is to spray the henhouse with kerosene. Also you can spray whitewash (an excellent vermin killer and disinfectant) in poultry houses and barns and on fences and walls much quicker than you can apply it with a brush. Also it is useful for watering plants, washing carriages, and applying shading material to hotbed sash or greenhouse glass. "However, no one should plead poverty as an excuse for not controlling the San José scale on his premises, because anyone can spray a few bushes with the aid of a pail and an old whisk broom. Just get a quart of the prepared lime-sulphur-salt compound at any seed store for forty cents, and dilute it with forty quarts of water if you use it in November. From December to February you can use it twice as strong with safety. "Many people buy these dollar squirt guns, which hold about a quart, but they are so slow and tire one so quickly that it is better economy to buy something that works faster and sprays farther. "A bucket pump costs about $3.75 without the bucket, and this is the cheapest outfit I would recommend.

But if you have any small trees to spray, you will want a pole with an extra seven feet of hose, which costs a dollar more. Then you will find that the liquid slops over unless you get a bucket with a cover that fastens down tight, and that may mean another dollar, or $5.75. By this time you will discover that it is very awkward to pump with one hand and hold up a seven-foot pole while spraying your fruit trees, and you will be willing to pay twenty-five cents more and get a compressed-air sprayer. "Now, if you are willing to spend $6 for a sprayer, you might as well pay $7.50 and get the best there is, for that includes an anti-clogging device, like the 'auto-pop,' which will save you the most exasperating feature of spraying. "Then you will have a brass tank, which cannot be corroded by chemicals or rusted like the tin and iron sprayers. It costs less than a knapsack sprayer, and you can carry it over your shoulder with the aid of a strap, for it weighs, when loaded, less than forty pounds. You can throw any kind of a spray, from a solid stream to a mist that will envelop a tree like a fog. And you have only one thing to think of-no pumping except once in ten or fifteen minutes."

Recipes for Spraying. -The standard preparations or solutions for spraying are as follows:

Bordeaux Mixture. This consists of copper sulphate, quicklime, and water. The "Standard" formula is: copper sulphate, 6 pounds; quicklime, 4 pounds; water, 22 gallons. The "Normal" formula is: copper sulphate, 6 pounds; quicklime, 4 pounds; water, 45 gallons. More re- HOUSEHOLD AND GARDEN PESTS cent experiments appear to favor a still more dilute solution.

We recommend for a strong solution: copper sulphate, 4 pounds; quicklime, 4 pounds; water, 50 gallons.

For a weaker solution we recommend: copper sulphate, 2 pounds; quicklime, 2 pounds; water, 50 gallons.