Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-07-29
THE UNvANQUISHED RAT
Man Has Fought Rodents 200 Years
Without COnquerine Them.
CFrom McClure's.)

Experiment shows that it takes about
60 cents worth of wheat to feed a
single rat for year. The eggs, cheese,
young chickens and squads, which it pre-
fers TO wheat, increase proportionately
the cost of its board.
| Even If there were no more rats in
the United States than there are human
beings. and if each rat consumed and
spoiled only % cents worth of food in a
year, the total cost in 10 years would be
| staggering. AS a matter of fact, the
rat population of most communities is
at least five times that of the human.
To this, moreover, must be added as
many more mice; for the mouse is really
rat.
There are then probably 500, 900. 600
rats in the United States, not including
mice and the various wild rats that for
the most part keep out of mans way
This means yearly cost for food alone
of 800, 600, 900.
To this must be added the damage they
do in obtaining material for their nests.
The annual loss in this direction is largely
matter of guesswork. A reasonable
and semi official estimate, however,
gives for Denmark. So, 900. 600 annually;
for France, $40. 600. 900; for Germany,
$50, OOO. 600; for Great Britain. S72. 600.
600, and for the United States at least
500, 900, 900, of which Sl5. 900 is
from fires. Fifteen dollars a month is
loss reported from a single farm.
No wonder that the United States
Department of Agriculture in this
country, and throughout European So
cieties, are trying to rouse the pub
lie to an appreciation of the gravity of
this problem.
The fact is that of all warm-blooded
creatures there are just two that are
really dominant, successful, increasing
in numbers and range and able to main
tain themselves anywhere in the world
against all rivals. These two are man
and the rats.
The genus homo and the genus mus
go everywhere and eat everything. They
are the two creatures that dwell ia,
houses and travel in ships. Each drives
its other rivals TO the wall, but neither,
except locally and for brief periods, has
ever come near TO exterminating the
other. Civilized man has fought the
common rat for 200 years and the battle
is still drawn,
Trapping alone and even poison are
rather to the advantage of the rats.
Every living thing. save only civilized
man, multiplies up TO the limit of its
food supply. To destroy from time to
time three-auarters of the rats in a city
only kills off the surplus population and
makes life easy and food abundant for
the rest. No matter how many are
caught there will always be plenty more.
The remnant. experienced and trap
shy, which get their living from granary.
pantry and chicken yard, will shun bats
and survive. The only way to dispose of
the last few individuals is to cut off
absolutely their food supply and make
them choose between certain starvation
and the chance of poison or trap.
On this basis San Francisco carried on
its campaign. Fifty thousand new
metal garbage cans with tight metal
covers wiped out as many feeding
places. Eighty-seven inspectors saw to
it that all poultry yards, bakeries,
restaurants, wharves, stables, slaughter
houses, grain bins and the like were
made ratproof with wire netting and
cement and induced the San Francis
cans to forego the convenient practice
of throwing their edible refuse in the
nearest vacant lot.
| In general all insanitary structures
inhabited by either men or animals were
condemned, all sewers repaired and
made tight and all cellar floors relaid
with cement, to do away with the
favOrite nesting place Of vermin. An
elaborate card catalogue recorded the
conditions of every building in the city;
nearly 400 recalcitrant persons suffered
arrest; there were upward of 80, OOO
attachments of nuisance. Altogether
San Francisco became one of the cleanest
cities in the world and one of the least
popular with the whole tribe of vermin,
A rats sight is not particularly good,
but its smell is keen and its sense OF
locality so perfect that it will run
through its holes and galleries in pitch
darkness at full speed. The great
Cuvier used especially to admire the
rats tail, which, he said, has more
muscles than the human hand. Care
full experiments have proved the trutf
of the ancient belief that by letting
; down its tail and licking the end the
rat extracts oil, milk, wine, molasse.
and other fluids from deep or narrow
. necked vessels.
No single point illustrates better tn,
sagacity of the rat than the way il
; which it eats an egg. 1t bites through
the shelf and chips off small fragment.
A as neatly as a squirrel opens a nut, con
3 sumes the entire contents without spill
E ing drop and then sits up and lick.
itself clean like a cat. Rats will stea
E the eggs from under a setting hen; il
E Washington they carried off IS dozer
eggs which commission merchant hac