St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-05-30
Gbe CALIFORNIAN.
HOW TO DESTROY MOTHS.

At this season, when in our North
ern country people are beginning to
put away their furs and heavy wool
ems, and visions of silvery moths and
hideous buffalo bugs are fitting
through their dreams by day and
night, a word of advice in the mat
ter NAV not come amiss. Many dol
lars are wasted every year in stores
of gum-camphor and of snuff and
shredded tobacco, by whose strong
odors these enemies of our clothing
are supposed to be driven away, the
good housewife making a point of
filling pockets with tobacco and
caInphor, and of laying bits of cloth
soaked in spirits of turpentine be-
tween the folds of her treasures, al
most every woman having a different
method of her own. But the truth
is that none of these methods are
necessary, and they owe the reputa-
ton of their efficacy solely to the care
with which they are carried out. 1t
is that care, and only that care,
which expels the eggs hidden away
already in convenient places, and
keeps out the mother moth so that
she cannot be the means of working
further damage A method of keep
ing furs and all other articles unin-
jured, which is perfectly effectual, is
one which requires no tobacco or
camphOr or any drug whatever; it is
simply the ounce of prevention. Let
each article be hung on the line out
doors, shaken well and long, and
then whipped with a slender rod;
this process Will expel every egg that
has been laid in its recesses. That
done, let the article be Immediately
folded away in several layers of news
papers, or, indeed, of any stout pa
per, and the edges of the papers
gummed with starch or mucilage,
so that the mother moth cannot find
an entrance to lay other eggs, and it
Is certain that the garments will be
taken out in the fall entirely whole
and sound This of course presup-
poses that the wrapping has been so
complete that the mother moth can
find no crevice through which to
creep and deposit her eggs thereafter
and that the eggs already laid have
been beaten out of the clothes. If
these eggs have not been disposed OF,
all the tobacco of America or cam
phor of Asia will not hinder the
worms Matched from eggs remaining
in the clothes, from eating till it is
time for them to spin, and from rid
ding their shelter with holes, it be
ing always understood that the little
flying mother moth does none of this
eating and destroying, her object be
ing only to deposit her eggs, and the
worms Matched from those eggs
which after their own transforma-
ton become winged beings doing
all the destruction before they put on
wings. But it is evident that if the
eggs have been shaken and whipped
out, then there are certainly none
there to hatch and work mischief;
and if the mother moth, which some
times seems to be the cunningest and
most contriving of created things,
cannot get in in order to lay any
more eggs, there will be no new ones
laid, and safety is thus as well in
sured as if one expended all the super
f1uous change in the family in the
purchase of tarred bags and malO-
dorOus drugs, or paid insurance
money to the dealers, whose only Sc
cret of preservation is, after all, the
taking of similar pains. Neverthe-
less, in places where there are dealers
who are willing to take furs and in
sure them for q small sum of money,
restoring them as good in the fall as
when they took them, it is a great
comfort and saving of nervous worry
to place them in such capable hands,
knowing no further anxiety about
them, and sure of receiving them or
their equivalent all right on the APP
proach of cold weather. Harper's
Bazaar