A Garden Poison
That excellent mstitution the Board of Green-keeping Research, which works on behalf of the British Golf Unions, has completed an enquiry into a new poison of rather more interest to gardeners than golfers. " They love not poison who do poison need " ; but most gardeners, not least in urban and suburban places, feel the need of something with poison in it when their most precious greenery is devoured nightly by slugs and snails. The poison (sold for the most part as Meta) consists chiefly of methaldehyde and has the advantages over other poisons that it is itself attractive as bait and is not dissolved by rain. When the first discovery of its efficacy was made it had a very good (horticultural) press ; and the scientific investigations made since have confirmed first impressions. Can the research workers at Bingley, the Yorkshire headquarters of the Board, explain why slugs prefer urban conditions ? Personally I have never seen
such devastating hordes in any country garden as in some of the small rectangles behind town houses. They are some- times numerous enough to make even a garden an unpleasant place. Meta's defect is that its sole victims are the slug and
snail. Leatherjackets, for example, are immune. Was not a quack poison advertised in the United States as " some bug-killer " ? ; and when complaints were made, the proprietors pointed out that the description only alleged that it destroyed some insects. The jest has an honoured place in the records of the American Ministry of Agriculture.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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