Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1907-06-06


coon issue a farmers bulletin on the
methods of destroying rats. This bull
letin was prepared under the super
vision of Assistant Biologist D. E.
Lantz, oil the Biological Survey. Ez-
perts assert that an infallible method
of exterminating rats would be worth
more 10 the people of the country in
single decade than the Department
of Agriculture have cost since its es-
tablishment.
Ono rat is much like another, so far
as destructiveness goes; but three
kinds, all immigrants from the Old
World, have made their appearance
in this country. The black rat was
the first to reach our shores, coming
nearly 300 years ago. The common
species, known as the brown, or Nor
way rat, arrived the year before the
Declaration of Independence was pro.
mulgated to the world and at once
proceeded to drive out its weaker rival
until almost everywhere it has sup
planted the black rat. The third
species, known as the roof, or Alex
andrine rat, of Egypt. is great mar.
liner, infests almost every ship and is
common along the coast, especially In
the South.
According to Uncle Sans experts,
the brown rat is the worst mammalian
pest in existence, and in the United
States destroys more property than
all O her Doxious animals com blned.
A single rat will consume about two
ounces of wheat or corn day, and 1t
DESTROYS far more of the corn than 1t
eats The average cost to the coun.
try of feeding one rat on grain is about
so cents year. If for each COW,
horse, sheep and hog on the farms Of
the United States the farmers support
only one rat on grain, the toll levied
on the cereals by these rodents would
reach the enormous total of 100000,
600 year. Even granting that half
their food is waste material, the tax
of feeding rats is still an enormous
drain on the profts Of agriculture.
But much of their food is more ex-
pensive than grain and the actual
losses due to these animals are by no
means confined to food. They enter
stores and warehouses and destroy dry
goods, lace curtains, carpets, woolena,
silks, kid gloves, and other leather
goods. They gnaw through lead pipes,
flooding buildings with water or fill
ing them with gas. They injure fur
niture and tho foundations and doors
of buildings. They eat the insulation
from electric wires, causing disastrous
fires. The average loss in the United
States due to defective insulation is
placed at SIS, 100000 annually, con-
siderable part Of which is believed to
be caused by rats.
Rats destroy eggs and young poul-
try, game birds and wild song birds.
They have been known to attack
young rabbits, pigs and lambs, and
even to attack children. Carl Hagen
beck once lost three young elephants
because rats gnawed their feet, In
ficting incurabie wounds.
Rats are active agents in carrying
disease germs from house to house and
from city to city. Bubonic plague is
usually disseminated from port to port
in this way.
Their prelifcness is the chief OBJ
stacle to the determination of rats
They produce young from three to
| six times a year, and females breed
when about three months old. The
average litter is-about 10, but it often
numbers more than IA. If three lit
tiers of ten are produced every year, a
single pair. breeding without check
and without loss by death, in three
years would be represented by 10 gen.
erations and would number 20, 1885,
1872 individuals. The eleventh gen.
GRAFTON. due at the beginning of the
fourth year, would number more than
100 100000.
The world has been fighting rats
for several centuries, but the warfare
has neither been systematic nor per-
sisteut. The number of "infallible"
devices and formulas for killing the
rodents that have been put forth
would ELL volumes, and still the pes
tiferous rat survives and grows more
and more cunning as the devices for
its destruction gain in ingenuity.
The Biological Survey does not pre-.
tend to have worked out aninfallible
device for killing rats by wholesale,
Il n