What’s a body to do? You work hard to maintain a good-looking lawn, and just when it looks its best, wham! A brown spot appears here, a yellow patch there. It seems you can’t win.

Hold on! Winners never quit and quitters never win. When you’re fighting the insect armies you must keep this slogan in mind at all times. In order to better fight your enemies, the lawn insects, you must realize one thing: they appreciate you a lot more than you do them.

As a matter of fact, they’re probably your greatest admirers and praise your abilities to all of their friends. After all, good, strong, healthy bugs wouldn’t think of eating tough old diseased grass and roots when they can have the best at your expense—you grow healthy, tender foliage to provide them with gourmet delights. The healthier and better-looking your lawn is, in other words, the more inviting it is to all the bugs in the neighborhood.

By this time you’re thinking, “To hell with a good-looking lawn. I think I’ll tear the whole thing up, pour concrete, and paint it green.” Many a home gardener has had this thought but soon passed it up when he discovered he could win the battle.

At the risk of repeating myself: good cultural practices must be adhered to if you’re to win. De-thatch, aerate, mow, water, and shampoo. Remember when parents used to wash a child’s mouth out with soap? Well, try that on garden bugs. Believe me, it’s just as effective. Pests and people both like things that taste good and neither likes the taste of soap in any way, shape or form. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that you use mild shampoo on a regular basis to discourage the return of the insects.

By applying lawn and garden gypsum, which I have described as being the “Hadacol” of the garden kingdom, you deal those unwanted visitors even more discomfort. Gypsum has a considerable amount of natural sulphur, which acts as a preventive insecticide in the soil in spring and fall. Soon the word will go out throughout the insect kingdom that you’re a mean host who grows bitter foliage.

It doesn’t matter where you live or what kind of lawn you have, gypsum and soap will act to safely keep insects away without harming the environment. From time to time it will be necessary to, use some chemical control. Before you use any chemical control, be sure it’s really necessary: isolate your problem and really dig into it. Dig up some affected turf and soil and really look at the bug.

Don’t just take someone else’s word for what’s causing your problem simply because he once had a spot or brown patch he thought was like yours and that turned out to be insect damage. It could be one of the other problems that I’ve already acquainted you with. If you don’t know for sure, you could treat for the wrong thing with the wrong chemical, destroying all your hard work. Why endanger your health or that of your pets or the birds by using a chemical control when you don’t need one? Now, treat your problem!

Go to your local nurseryman with the intruder in a jar and confirm your identification if there’s the least bit of doubt in your mind. Ask him for a recommendation as to what chemical will be necessary to treat the problem. Then read every single word on the label, including the copyright symbol. Buy only enough of any chemical for the present application.