Boil together in four gallons of water 1 lb. of flowers of sulphur and 2 lb. of fresh lime, and add 11/2 lb. of soft soap, and, before using, 3 gallons more of water, or mix 4 oz of sulphate of lime with half that weight of soft soap, and, when well mixed, add 1 gallon of hot water.  Use when cool enough to bear your hand in it.  Any insecticide containing sulphur is useful.  The walls should be well washed with some insecticide of this kind.  Old walls in which the pointing is bad and the bricks full of nail holes, etc., are very difficult to keep free from red spider.  They should be painted over with a strong solution of soot water mixed with clay to form a paint.  To a gallon of this paint add 1 lb. of flowers of sulphur and 2 oz of soft soap.

This mixture should be thoroughly rubbed with a brush into every crack and crevice of the walls, and if applied regularly every year would probably prevent the trees from being badly attacked.  As the red spider passes the winter under some shelter, frequently choosing stones, rubbish, etc., near the roots of the trees, keeping the ground near the trees clean and well cultivated will tend greatly to diminish their numbers.  In vineries one of the best ways of destroying these creatures is to paint the hot water pipes with one part of fresh lime and two parts of flowers of sulphur mixed into a paint.  If a flue is painted in this way, great care should be taken that the sulphur does not burn, or much damage may be done, as the flues may become much hotter than hot water pipes.  During the earlier stages of growth keep the atmosphere moist and impregnated with ammonia by a layer of fresh stable litter, or by painting the hot water pipes with guano made into 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