Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1914-09-09

Something-perhaps the dry wea-
ther during the spring-seems to
have made vermn active this sum
mer, if one may judge by the ques-
tionS asked.
Now, while the days and nights are
warm, is the time to fumigate. Read
the letter from the farmers wife in
this issue.
The Letter
81, like a great many other wo-
men, am the wife Of tenant far
mer. We have many hardships that
the farm owners wife does not
know. Some Of them would feel
badly If they had hard time for two
years getting a flock of chickens, and
then found that the crop had not
made and the hens had to go to pay
the landlord.
There is one thing that Is hard
for us, and that is that when we
move we go into houses that have
bed-bags and other vermin, and they
bite the children so bad they can't
sleep, and it makes them sick.
"One time I was worried. We were
sights. The doctor was going by in
the road and | stopped him and told
him | would pay him when the cropS
grew if he would cure us.
He gave us some salve and said
he would come back the next day and
kill the vermin. We paid him in the
fall with ,nrce bushels Of potatoes
and twc bushels of peaches and he
said he was more than paid.
This is what the doctor did, and
any poor tenant can do the same, for
| have done it twice since myself:
He gave the house two kinds of
treatment, one to kill the vermin
like lice and bed-bugs, and the other
to kill the germs that cause sickness.
For the first time he set four
pans on two bricks each, in every
corner of our rooms. In these pans
were put piles Of sulphur powder. A
room IA feet square should have six
or seven pounds Of sulphur. The
doctor says the reason it does not kill
the bugs sometimes is because we do
not use enough. 1t cost the doctor
three cents pound, but | have not
bought it from a drug store for less
than five or six cents.
at burns with a light blue flame
that is hard to see. One must light
each pan and then get out quickly
and shut the door. A strip of paper
wet in water was used to close UP a
few big cracks. 1t drops off when
dry. The sulphrr blackens knives
and forks and other metal badlSssc
we took all such out of doors. we
lived out of doors two days, but the
doctor said one would have done, and
then we washed and summed the few
bed clothes we had out before taking
them into the house.
Next week the doctor fumigated
for germs! This is what he did, He
set a tub with little water in it in
the middle Of each room. In each he
put pan and in each pan he put six
ounces Of formaldehyde, which is a
white liquid. Then he shut all doors
and windows except the one to go
out by. He put six ounces Of potas.
sium permanganate in each of two
paper bags. When he was all ready
he dropped one bag gently into the
formaldehyde and got out Of the
room before he could breathe the
gas, which would have made him
sick.
Il dropped the other lag in the
other room. This gas will kill any
thing except beetles and bed-bugs
and others like that, and it killed
some of them.
Doctor said to do it again in six
months. | did it alone that time and
it cost $2.10, but the last time we
moved it cost $2.75. / did not have
the money, but the druggist gave II
to me for a hen and ten little biddies
"This | want to say, and | want
other tenants like us to think Of it
people cannot make good crops II
they are awake at night with bugs
and if they get sick from fever and
consumption, so take my advice and
spend the money at once for getting
rid Of vermin instead Of waiting and
paying it for doctors bills.
"A Tenant Farmers Wife"
Stop That First Fall Cough.
CbocL vour fall cou oh Or nOIJ 81