In My garden
Two particular pests this year are the flea-beetle and the ant. I have no compunction about sprinkling a mixture of D.D.T. and derris dust on the former as he consumes my youilg turnips, radishes and brassica seedlings. But to destroy a nest of ants requires some degree of callous- ness that I find it hard to cultivate. I ,Aink how John Clare describes the ant as w . . this mite, with cheerfulness to hold Its toiling labours through the sultry hours " ;
but when it toils in its millions, from nests colonised every few yards over the grass banks and herbaceous borders, the traffic becomes destruc- tive and even sordid. They have even explored from the garden to the house, invading the preserves_supboard. The remedy there is to soak a car-sponge in sugar and tier and leave it as ambush on the floor of the cupboard. When full of the marauders it can be dropped- into boiling water and then set afresh. A horrid necessity. May the
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