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 poi son from being scattered within the large box near enough to the open ings 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 rets in charge of an experienced per son will drive rats out of their bur rows 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 tempo rary inclosure of fine mesh wire net ting several feet high, and pitching the stack over the netting, to be re laid outside. One or more dogs or ferrets may be placed inside the in closure to take care of the rats which endeavor to escape while the straw is being removed.
A 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 satura ting a wad of cotton in carbon bi sulphide, pushing it into the opening of the burrow, and packing down the soil. Farm buildings are usually
not tight enough to admit of fumi gation with this or any gas.
Rat-proof Construction. — The use of concrete and cement in construc tion 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 net ting. Or lay the floors and founda tions 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 33 feet high.
Ratite for Rats.—We make no apology for quoting in full the follow ing extract from a circular of the Pas teur Vaccine Company, whose prod ucts are for sale by leading drug gists or can be obtained of the mak ers. This preparation is so unique and effective that we unhesitatingly recommend it, believing that all who try it will regard the suggestion as perhaps the best that could be given on the subject: " Until to-day, the usual means employed for ridding private houses, stables, corn and hay lofts, etc., of the rats, mice, and other small gnaw ing animals which do so much dam age there, were various chemical products, of which the principal ele ments were arsenic, strychnine, nux vomica, etc., which destroyed them by poisoning.
" However, the desired result could only be thus obtained by each indi vidual rat or mouse swallowing the bait, and this necessarily entailed d. long time when the pests were nu merous, and was even impracticable when large spaces required treating.
" Moreover, the use of these chem ical products was not without dan ger for domestic animals, and hence could not be used in poultry yards, stables, kennels, pheasantries, farms, etc. Children have even been poi soned in this way when the necessary precautions were not taken to pre vent them from touching the bait.