Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends pest-control substances such as arsenic compounds, strychnine, or cyanide — in some cases applied to food crops. These substances are lethal to humans and animals, and their use is now banned or strictly controlled.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Contributions From Friends On Household Economy › Ants and Flies
Ants and Flies
Sprigs of worm-wood will drive away large black ants; and none of them, whether black, brown or red, relish wintergreen, tansy, Paris green, cayenne or kerosene; so if they invade our pantries, we can, by a judicious application of some one of these articles, make the premises too unpleasant for them. Fly-paper should be kept around the house as early as the middle of May. Put it in every open window, and thus destroy every intruder. It must constantly be borne in mind, that the cobalt with which some fly-paper is saturated, and also Paris green, are two most deadly poisons. Keep them safely out of the way of children.