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Household and Garden Pests: Persian

Methods recommended for preventing and eradicating fleas are the use of Persian insect powder, petroleum products, eucalyptus oil, oil of pennyroyal or sassafras the leaves of pennyroyal or camomile flowers, and hot soapsuds; also washing animals with creolin, or, if necessary, fumigating the premises with hydrocyanicacid gas or sulphurous-acid gas. Dust Persian insect powder freely into the fur of domestic animals and into all cracks and crevices in the floor and walls about their sleeping places.

Or, if this is not sufficient, spray the entire carpet or matting and lower part of the walls and baseboards with benzine from a watering pot having a very fine nozzle or a spray-nozzle syringe. This must, of course, be done by daylight, and the room thoroughly aired before introducing any light.

Or, if necessary, remove all floor coverings, take them out of doors, and scrub them with gasoline or benzine.

Wash the floors with hot soapsuds containing 1 or 2 pounds of alum dissolved in hot water to the pailful.

If pets are kept, do this as a preventive measure when house cleaning, or before leaving the house when it is to be shut up for a long time.

Or wash down the floors with hot water containing 1 pint of creolin to the pailful. This method is sure.

About once a week saturate in this mixture the bedding used by domestic animals, and let it drip dry in the open air.

If necessary, fumigate the premises with sulphurous-acid gas or hydrocyanic-acid gas.

Eucalyptus oil or the oil of pennyroyal rubbed on one's wrists and ankles will keep off fleas in localities or dwellings badly infested with them.

Or sprinkle either oil about sleeping places of domestic animals and on their fur. Mix with an equal quantity of alcohol and apply by means of an atomizer.

If beds and bedding become infested, spray them with this mixture. Or place twigs and leaves of pennyroyal or camomile flowers in beds or kennels of cats and dogs or other infested localities. Substitute rugs for carpets in rooms frequented by do mestic animals, also prevent the accumulation on the floor of litter of any kind, such as books, papers, and the like. No such accumulation should remain undisturbed more than a few days at a time. A good rule is, on cleaning day move everything.

Professor Gates, of Cornell University, has won international celebrity by a method of catching fleas in a badly infested building. He got the janitor to tie sheets of fly paper about his legs with the sticky side out, and to walk up and down the floor in the infested rooms. A large number of the fleas jumped for his ankles, as they were accustomed to do, and were caught by the fly paper.

Fleas on Domestic Animals. -To free domestic animals of fleas, sprinkle their fur liberally with insect powder, or wash them in a decoction of pennyroyal, sassafras, mint, or other strong vegetable perfume, or in a creolin wash composed for dogs, 4 teaspoonfuls of creolin, and for cats, 2 teaspoonfuls to 1 quart of water. Apply the wash with the hands or with a brush, or submerge the animals in it for about 5 minutes.

If cats object to this process, place them in a bag composed of some strong washable material with a draw string, not too tight, about the neck, and immerse them for 5 minutes or more.