The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-06-04

fever or diphtheria. as it often does when it comes from a garbage leap, there is . grave danger of infectins human beings. Sleeping babies on whose mouth flies are allowed to crawl are often infected with bowel troubles in this way. In our Spanish war soi- diers in camp were infected with ty- phoid fever by flies that had free ac- cess to sewage dumps. Farmers who themselves live in ideal conditions may be made sick by flies coming from the unprotected garbage pile of sick neighbor. It is only within very re- cent years that science has demon strated these dangers from flies. The time will soon come when we shall wonder at the dark times when we al- lowed these tribes of public enemies to breed unmolested.
 When the public is aroused to the dange rof house flies their destruction VIII soon become an assured fact. While they are with us. as they doubt less will be until the whole communi- ty becomes educated in their life his tory. we must protect ourselves against them as best we may. Flies do not like to remain in rooms that are dry and free from mold It is a mistake to keep room continually darkened in order to exclude flies, for darkness keeps the room moist Let in the sun light. except possibly for few hours in the afternoon. In the kitchen see that food Is not left exposed or un- covered. and keep the floors and tables clean. Screen all the windows and make the scren doors open outward so that the flies will ride out of the room when the doors are opened. Baited fly traps attract more flies than they catch. and sticky papers are often more of a nuisance than the flies them selves An effective trap is the old fashioned bunch of sweet fern or bay berry which our grandmothers sus- pended from the ceiling. The flies used to roost on them and were caught in bag slipped over them at night. A pint day was a usual catch in our old-time kitchen. But traps and screens are only makeshifts. Flies may be attacked successfully only while they are helplessly confined in their breeding places. Their destruc- tion lies almost wholly with farmers and uiverymen. for house-flies begin their lives in damp manure piles-there and nowhere else. If there were no filthy barnyards and stables there would be no flies. for they would have no place in which to grow.
 Each house-fly comes from a single egg that is laid by parent fly. The mothers of the first broods are the few flies that have survived the winters cold and mice and birds in sheltered hooks and corners. Their eggs are similar to the fly blows on meat, which are the eggs of the bluebottle fly All fly eggs hatch out "maggots." and all maggots are young flies of some sort. The most of the maggots in manure piles are young house flies. full grown maggot shrivels into brown thinshelled object that looks like a fat kernel of wheat This is the pupal stage and from 1t there comes a full grown fly. From egg to fly takes something like two weeks time The month of May Is long enough for each mother fly to rear thousands of children and grandchil- dren In that month is the time to destroy the young flies before they take wing.
 The extermination of house flies de- bends on our care of manure piles. While stable manure is their usual breeding place they will breed in any collection of animal excrement, such as barrels of hen manure, and water closet vaults. A damp barnyard that Is It, tered with loose piles of manure is a great fly nursery. A firm compost heap is almost free from maggots, for the mother flies cannot penetrate 1t to lay their egs. An industrious hen on the pile will destroy dozens of young flies in a day, besides stirring up the surface so that 1t becomes too dry for the flies to grow. It Is thus evident that tidy barn yards have a close re- lation to the dining-room and parlor and to our comfort and health.-Farm- ing.