Important: Safety Warning
This page contains a formula or preparation using substances now known to be dangerously toxic, such as arsenic, mercury, lead, or cyanide compounds. Exposure to these substances can cause severe poisoning, permanent injury, or death.
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 page describes practices involving highly flammable materials in ways that create a serious risk of fire or explosion.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Household and Garden Pests: Place
Or insert dry crystals of strychnine in small pieces of raw meat, sausage, or toasted cheese. Place these in the rat runs.
Or dissolve ounce of strychnine sulphate in 1 pint of boiling water, add 1 pint of thick sugar sirup, and stir vigorously. Soak wheat or oatmeal in this strychnine sirup over night and spread it about the runs, but do not use strychnine in occupied dwellings, as it is an active poison, and the rats die in their holes before they can escape in search of water.
Or make a dough of phosphorous paste with corn meal, oatmeal, or flour and a little sugar, and add a few drops of oil of rhodium or aniseed. To make phosphorous paste, melt 1 pound of lard in a glass fruit jar, set it in boiling water, and when melted add ounce of phosphorus and 1 pint of alcohol. Screw on the top and shake the jar vigorously to form a complete emulsion. Allow this to settle and pour off the spirits, which may be used again for the same purpose.
Or dissolve in a glass fruit jar ounce of phosphorus in 10 ounces of warm water, and mix to form a stiff dough with 10 or 12 ounces of rye meal, 10 ounces of butter, and 8 ounces of sugar. Place small quantities of the dough in the rat runways. But remember that phosphorus HOUSEHOLD AND GARDEN PESTS readily ignites by friction, and the rats may carry it into their holes and set the place on fire; hence it is not as safe to use as barytes or strychnine.