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Household and Garden Pests: Bait

To Bait Traps. - Bait rat traps with pieces of bologna sausage, oatmeal, toasted cheese, buttered toast, sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds, or all of these used in succession.

The bait must be changed frequently, as rats are very suspicious, and the location of the traps must be frequently changed. If wood or steel traps are used, insert a stick through the trap after baiting, light a bundle of paper, and smoke it thoroughly. This covers the scent of the hands Or place a few drops of oil of rhodium or aniseed on or about the trap. This covers the scent of the hands, and also seems to attract rats and mice.

Or, if wire rat traps are used, after catching one or two rats, do not release, but feed them. They thus act as decoys for others. When a number have been caught, place the trap in a tub of water to drown them.

A correspondent suggests releasing live rats after coating them with a mixture containing phosphorus. Mix with water to the consistency of milk 4 ounces of glue, 4 ounces of asafœtida, and 2 ounces of phorus dissolved in a little alcohol. potash, and add ounce of phos- Shake the whole to form a complete emulsion.

Catch one or more rats in a wire cage. Take a pronged stick having prongs about as long as the rat's neck is thick, wedge the fork just behind the animal's ears, and pin him firmly to the floor. He can be held in this position without risk or difficulty. Roll a bit of newspaper into a tight cylinder, set fire to one end, and with the lighted end singe the hair from his back. This can be done without burning the flesh. Fix a small paint brush on a long stick and after dark apply a coating of the phosphoric mixture, slightly warm, to the animal's back, and release him near his hole. Just what impression is produced by what seems to be the ghost of a departed rat reappearing in his old haunts would be hard to say, but those who have tried the experiment report that no rats remain in the vicinity to give an account of their sentiments.

Rats in Poultry Houses. -Traps or poison used to exterminate rats in poultry houses must be protected from fowl invasion. This can be done by inverting over the trap a wooden box or cheese box, with holes cut in the sides through which the rats can enter. As an additional precaution the poison may be placed under a smaller box having holes through which the rats can merely insert their noses without entering, and inverting the large box over the small one. This will prevent the poison from being scattered within the large box near enough to the openings to be reached by fowls. Tack these boxes to the floor on to stakes firmly driven into the ground so that they cannot be shoved about.

Dogs and Ferrets for Rats.-Ferrets in charge of an experienced per- HOUSEHOLD AND GARDEN PESTS son will drive rats out of their burrows so that dogs can capture them. The ferret is the rat's most deadly enemy, but ferrets in the hands of amateurs are not always a success.

When rats attack a stack of grain, hay, or straw, or take refuge beneath it, they may be exterminated by building around the stack a temporary inclosure of fine mesh wire netting several feet high, and pitching the stack over the netting, to be relaid outside. One or more dogs or ferrets may be placed inside the inclosure to take care of the rats which endeavor to escape while the straw is being removed. similar method is employed to entrap the rats by natives in the rice fields of the far East. Temporary piles of brush and rice straw are built in which the rats accumulate.

The straw is then removed and the rodents are destroyed.

Fumigation for Rats.-Rats which burrow in fields, levees, or rice-field dikes may be destroyed by saturating a wad of cotton in carbon bisulphide, pushing it into the opening of the burrow, and packing down the soil. Farm buildings are usually not tight enough to admit of fumigation with this or any gas. Rat-proof Construction. - The use of concrete and cement in construction is the best means of abating the rat nuisance. All sorts of farm buildings and other structures are now being constructed of concrete.

Edison predicts that dwelling houses will shortly be made of this material from cellar floor to chimney top.

The foundations of all buildings and even whole cellars may be made rat proof by this means at very slight expense.

Fill rat holes with a mixture of cement, sand, and broken glass or sharp bits of stone. Line galleries, corn cribs, and poultry houses inside or outside with fine mesh wire netting. Or lay the floors and foundations in concrete, extending it up on the sills. Invert pans over the posts of corn cribs, but be sure to make these high enough so that the rats cannot jump from the ground on to the posts or sills. The posts should be at least 3 feet high.