The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-10-19
THE BUFFALO BUG.

that emanate from the departments of
government at Washington have pc
culiarly close interest for general hu-
manity. Circular No. 5, second series, is
sued by the division of entomology of the
Department of Agriculture, is OF such a
character, 1t relates TO the buffalo bug,
otherwise and technically known as the
carpet beetle, buffalo moth-anthrenu
scrophularia.
Fortunate indeed is the householder
who has not had an intimate acquaint-
ance with the buffalo bug. The bug is
pest OF the most pestiferous kind. He
enters the best regulated families, works
all the year round and eats everything
that lac can find TO eat, with n special
taste for carpets which he devours along
the line Of floor crack and chews in a
long apd dreadful slit.
From the report herein referred to it
is learned that the buffalo bug abounds in
all the New England States and the
Middle Western States avoiding, how
ever, for some unexplained reason, the
city of Philadelphia. On the Pacific
coast he is common enough, but he has
little appetite for the carpets they have
out there. He was imported from
Europe about 1874 aud is now thorough
ly naturalized.
The researches of the agricultural de-
partment to discover killing cure for
the buffalo bug are, as any housewife
could have told them, not altogether
satifactory. He is as hard for science to
kill as he is for the housewife. If there
isn't anything for the larvae to feed on
or it is too cold in the house, the larvae
live just the same until it is warm
enough to work, subsisting mean
while on their own cast off
skins. The first remedy seems to be
not to use carpets. Where polished
floors and the frequently shaken rug are
the habit, the buffalo pug thrives not
aud is not known as household pest.
If you have the flowers of Spir@a or
plants Of the family Scrophulariac, e,
whatever those are, growing in your
garden the beetles will fly ont to them
and 80 your house will be rid of them.
But, If in the good old-fashioned New
England way, you use carpets, the ex-
per.s can only recommend one thing for
the cure of the buffalo bug. You must
have two annual" house cleanings in
stead of one and they must be particu-
lirly thorough. To quote from the re-
port herein referred to:
"The rooms should be attended to one or
two at time. The carpets should be
taken up, thoroughly beaten, and sprayed
out Of door with benzlne, and allowed to
air for several hours. The rooms them.
selves should be thoroughly swept and
busted, the floors washed down with hot
water, the cracks carefully cleaned out,
and kerosene or benzine poured into the
cracks and sprayed under the bassbosrds.
The extreme inflammability of
benzine, and even of its vapor
when confined, should be re-
membered and fire carefully guarded
against. Where the floors are poorly
constructed and the cracks are wide, It
VIII pt kood iuca tO III tne CrackS with
plaster of paris in a liquid state; this will
afterward set and lessen the number of
harboring places for the insect. Before
relaying the carpet, tarred roofing paper
should be laid upon the floor, at least
around the edges, but prefera bly, over the
entire surface, and when the carpet is re-
laid 1t Will be well to tack IL down rather
lightly, so that Ii can occasionally lifted
at the edges and examined for the presence
ofthe insect. Later in the season, il such
an examination shows the insect to have
made its appearance, a good, though
somewhat laborious, remedy consists in
laying n damp cloth smoothly over the
suspected spot OF the carpet and ironing
it with a hot iron. The steam thus gem
Grated will pass through the carpet and
kill the insects Immediately beneath it.n
In conclusion, l.. O. HOWARD, the
expert entomologist, approved by ].
STERLING MORTON, Secretary of Agri-
culture, has this to say:
"Good housekeepers are conservative
people, but we expect eventually to see
more general adoption of the rug OF of
the square of carpet, which may at all
times be readily examined and treated il
found necessary. Where tha floors are
bad the practice OF laying straw mattipRs
under the rugs produces slightly an
pearance, and, while not rs cleanIy as a
bare floor, affords still fewer harboring
places for this insect