The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-07


 enthusiasm, and we submitted to thesre. latien with passive disgust until within | the last two or three years Of course 1 it is probable that Musca domestica ex- I isted even before civilization did, but in I insignificant numbers and in precarious way, much as did the famous potato bug upon the leaves of a solanaceous plant in Eastern Colorado, to spread like .pes- tilence all over the civilized world as soon as new food plant of the same family, the potato, was presented to him | by civilization.
 1 The fly is literally creature of civiliza- tion and cannot exist away from human homes and outbuildings He Is a winged punishment, which our own dirt, cares lessness and neglect have brought upon us.
 Its cheering side. If we have created him, we can exterminate him. And this ! is precisely what modern civilization is going to do within the next two decades All the advantages in this campaign arel on our side. Unlike the mosquito, that carries malaria and yellow fever, which breeds in natural pools and swamps; or the tsetse fly, which spreads the ghastly sleeping sickness, and breeds in vegeta- ton along the edge of rivers and in peri I lous places like the mouths of crocodiles, the fly breeds with touching confidence Tn our kind hearted filthiness, under our very caves. All we have to do to render his existence impossible is to clean upI our own door yards and stable yards. Every step that we take toward ex- terminating him is well worth the trifing trouble and expense that it costs, for the sake Qt our comfort, our noses, our self-re- speet and even our aesthetic sense. We have so long been accustomed to ex- peet hies in summer as a feature of the season as regularly and inevitably as frostI n october that we may find 1t hard at nrst to believe how absolutely and com !pletely the fly is product of civilization and it's untidiness. There are, of course, a score of other ties, some of which resemble the house ny quite closely. But when we talk of nles about house or on food, or in the spread of disease, we refer to one species, and one only, the Musca domestica, the
 ny domestic" in ninety to ninety-fve per cent or the eases. The other ten per cent will be nearly all "bluebottles' or blow I flies" lcalliphora). Those of us who have ever lived upon the frontier or camped our in regions far from civilization will be abie to realize this more readily, as we can recall that temporary camps which were mile or more away from any house ana lasted less than a week were comparatively free from flies.
 Similarly, frontier districts, and particu- iarly mountainous regions, may by good fortune remain entirely free from this pest for months, or even years, after the arrival of the first settlers The ability to dry or jerk" yenison, beef or mutton, simply. by cutting 1t into strips and hang ing 1t Tn the open air, without salt pepper or other preservative, was absolutely de pendent upon the absence of both the do- nestle fly and the bluebottle or big "blow fly" Wherever these have penetrated, the regions in the West and Southwest which used to rely upon this sun dried venison or beef as the principal staple of their provisions for hunting and explor- ing trips find 1t now utterly impossible to cure meat in this manner, as 1t becomes a swarming mass of maggots within forty eight hours. The sheep herders in the ranges of Idaho Montana and Wyoming l will tell you that ten or fifteen years ago they could kill a sheep for mutton, hang up the carcass in cool, dry place and cut ] of painful of chops each day until all the desirable parts of the carcass were used up, without the meat spelling or tainting { in the slightest degree.
 l They can do the same thing nowadays, ! if they take the precaution to tie up the carcass in a clean gunny sack or bag of mosquito netting and keep it free from blow flies. Otherwise it becomes a mass of carrion within two or three days. One herder told me with a grim chuekle how he had got even with his boss who was stingy in the matter of camp supplies and had twice refused to send him a gunny sack in which to tie up his car easses of mutton.
 "But he didn't save anythin' by 1t, for 1 l wasn't goin' to eat fy-blOwn meat, so jest killed a fresh sheep every day. And didn't he storm when he come up tol count the bunch at the end of the season!l But he couldn't do nothin', fer he hadn't given me no other meat, and I was en-i titled to all the mutton that needed for my own use." MANS refuse or that of his domestic animals is absolutely necessary to the development of the fly. The im- 1, portant and most hopeful practical point IS that 1t is not the mere scattering and litterlng about of refuse that breeds him, but its accumulation in masses, recep-l