a paint, as long as the air in the house is kept moist there is not
much danger of a bad attack. As soon as the leaves are off, the canes
should be dressed with the recipe already given for painting the
walls, and two inches or so of the surface soil removed and replaced
with fresh and all the wood and iron work of the house well scrubbed.
If carnations are attacked, tying up some flowers of sulphur in a
muslin bag and sulphuring the plants liberally, and washing them well
in three days' time has been recommended.

Tobacco water and tobacco smoke will also kill these pests, but as
neither tobacco nor sulphuring the hot water pipes can always be
resorted to with safety in houses, by far the better way is to keep a
sharp look out for this pest, and as soon as a plant is found to be
attacked to at once clean it with an insecticide which it is known the
plant will bear, and by this means prevent other plants from being
infested. These little mites breed with astonishing rapidity, so that
great care should be exercised in at once stopping an attack. A lady
friend of mine had some castor oil plants growing in pots in a window
which were badly attacked, and found that some lady-birds soon made
short work of the mites and cleared the plants. The red spider lays
its eggs among the threads of the web which it weaves over the under
sides of the leaves; the eggs are round and white; the young spiders
are hatched in about a week, and they very much resemble their parents
in general appearance, but they have only three pairs of legs instead
of four at first, and they do not acquire the fourth pair until they
have changed their skins several times; they are, of course, much
smaller in size, but are, however, in proportion just as destructive
as the older ones. They obtain the juices of the leaves by eating
through the skin with their mandibles, and then thrusting in their
probosces or suckers (Fig. 2), through which they draw out the juices.