Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1911-05-20
THE FLY AND THE SKEETER

I and attention and they should be SO
constructed that they can be looked
after with the best results. Dairy
farmers should look particularly to the
sanitation of the milk houses and all
its surroundings. and dairy windows
and doors should be screened.
Barnyards should be kept scrupulous-
ly neat, cutters and stalls of stable
should be cleaned daily and all refuse
heaps kept covered pending removal.
No decaying material should be permit
ted to accumulate on the household
premises, and the garbage can should
be cleaned and secured daily and when
in use should be always kept well COW
cred. All wooden garbage boxes or
leaky slop pals should be abolished
Where there is no kitchen plumbing,
don't throw kitchen slop water, day by
dayAover the same spot by the kitchen
door The way to get rid Of flies is
by absolute cleanliness, and the upto-
date farmer for further protection
screens all his windows and outside
doors.
Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water
in wet marshes or in any pool or per
manent water accumulation, as in
badly graded irrigating bitches or in
roof cutters holding water: standing
where may breed them.
Mosquitoes are not merely a con-
slant source of discomfort, or as re-
CARDS some species a serious danger
to health, but mosquitoes may also
effect business interests. 1t has been
asserted that by the attacks of swarms
of mosquitoes upon herds of cattle
their milk yield has been so refused
as to make the keeping of these ami
mails for dairy purposes improbable.
Horses are injured by the attacks of
mosquitoes. 1t is familiar fact that
there are tracts of land in various
parts of the country that are made
practically uninhabitable and impos-
sibie of development owing to the pres
ence of mosquitoes in large numbers;
and many places badly infested with
them have shown a depreciation or
have failed of appreciation in their
property value, so that all mosquitoes
are harmful in one way or another.
For mosquito control and extermin-
alton there are now employed many
means. which are applied by individ-
ual work on ones own premises or by
combined or community efforts. OBJ
viously all windows and outside doors
OF farmhouses should be carefully
screened to keep out mosquitoes, as
should be also rain water barrels and
other water receptacles; but the breed
ing places of the mosquitoes should be
done away with, by drainage, by fill
ing in or by treatment with kerosene |
oil or similar preparations.
Neighboring farmers should cooper |
ate. In farm villages Improvement |
societies should be formed, one of their |
objects being organized war on the
mosquito. The work OF such a society |
should be laid out and directed by one |
responsible head, and It is desirable |
that he be a practical sanitarian Much |
of the work to be done is OF an engin- |
eering nature, such as the ditching of /
the proper grading of cutters /
and so on, and the assistance of an eng
ineer familiar with drainage work is
much to be desired. Each farmer
member OF the society should make in
effort about his own premises,
and these individual Iabors should be
supplemented by the combined com
effort in whatever direction
may be required.
To get rid OF flies and mosquitoes
would protect the farmers health and
well being and enhance his comfort
and increase his profits.