Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-09-09

leading the fly by gentle stages from
freedom to Imprisonment. Other in
ventors have so arranged these sys-
I TENS of slow transit that the fly is led
to absent mindedly step from the
roller, mount a gentle elevation and
walk into the prison of it's own
thoughtless volition. Others have in
vented revolving wheels that hurl the
insect to destruction all in a second.
In short, nothing in the way of a trap
is too good for the fly.
But the actual warfare-or rather the
actual defence-of- man against insect is
carried on by screens and f1ypaper
Roughly speaking the East has devel-
oped the science of fertilization while tn,
great West. particularly Michigan, has
devoted itself to capture and destruction
New England has the worlds largest
screen factory and Michigan supplies the
world with sticky flypaper. There are
smaller factories near all the large cities
and there are more kinds of sticky fly
paper than one can count on the toes and
| fingers. Boston. for example. has six
factories and about twice many agents
who represent the interests of other
screen-making establishments. In Cali
| fornia. Arkansas, Ohio. New York, Penn
sylvania-in fact, throughout the whole
! United States from one end to the other
mind against the activity Of the fly. On
| Feb. ], the Ea st begins to prepare the for
tifications and on July / humanity is pref
ty well fortified; but no Notifications can
altogether defy a really determined fly,
| and all summer the great West continues
| to supply the besieged with their familiar
! and universal weapons. But the battle
as waged by man. is always on the de-
| fensive. Only in a few isolated places,
where the scientists are working out
their own theory of salvation, does man
go out bodily and attack the fly on his
own territory.
| During the busy preparatory season a
| typical Boston factory-neither the
| largest nor the Smallest-turnS out about
some 100000 feet of moulding and some
| $1,000 square feet of wire netting. Now II
one medium sized factory turns out
something more than enough made-to-
| order wire screens to keep a fly off an
acre feld-and if there are several fac
| tories near each large city, to say nothing
of the big factories that make the ready
made screens that are sent everywhere,
or the mosquito netting industry that
permits everyone TO be his own screen
maker, the size of this one industry be-
| comes Immediately apparent. Here, at
least, the fly is responsible for work and
Intelligence that makes the protection
actually protect. If the enemy should
| come against us all together under a fly
Grant or q fly Napoleon. they could easily
destroy us household by household.
| Meantime We have the sticky and the
| poison fiy-paper. With the sticky paper
we catch flies and occasionally each
| other in what we generally agree is an
unpleasant manner; with the poison va
! riety we kill the fly and have to sweep
him up afterward, which is hardly more
ldelightful. And the principle of the
sticky paper has itself given rise to num-
| erous ether inventions intended to exert
the same degree of unrefusable hospital
lily. There are sticky poles for example.
which stand upright and are graced with
more or less complicated arrangements
| for removing the fly and reanointing the
pole before returning it to its first posi-
ton There is one sticky arrangement
| that might be carried in the pocket. This
| is q sticky cord in a sticky bottle. The
cord projects from the stopper. and may
be drawn out to any length desired and
then pushed back again. If you are trav-
cling .et US say, and are annoyed by a
fly YOU take out the bottle. draw out a bit
! of the cord and place the arrangement
where the fly is likely to discover it.
| Here" says the fly, is something
sweeter even than this individual man.
He is amusing enough to be sure. but why
not lunch first and amuse ones self after
| ward?" So he flies to the sticky cord; ne
is entangied, the porter removes him, ana
you return the bottle to your pocket 1t
lis another invention, by the way. upon
whose possibilities the inventor failed to
Hay sufficient stress and which has there
4 fore fallen into oblivion. But it is per-
hans al, Indication of the kindness of hui
man nature that a typical successful
drug store, where there is a constant and
/ greater demand for poison paper, sells
/ hardly more than 70s1 square feet OF
4 sticky in a whole summer. Poisoning
the Nv is very much more popular.
i 1t is pleasant to know the fly has
| troubIes of her own. She is caught. by
spiders. in fact. she is eaten by them.
She has her own parasitic enemies and
4 when she is attacking you these little,
almost invisible, insects are attackini
4 her: better yet we told that in all
lprobability these little insects are ex-
ifremely annoying. She is eaten by larger
II creatures She is even pursued, captures
Der flies with whom we are PERSONAL,
very little acquainted In short the life
If the fly is neither long. which is fortJi-
nate. nor altogether happy, which is
comforting.