The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1915-07-26

Washington, D. c., July 26.-An
educational crusade against the house
fly in which every proper means of
publicity should be employed is urged
by the Department of Agriculture. In
a new Farmers Bulletin, No. 679, it is
stated that the danger from the house
fly must be brought forcibly home to
the people before health officers can
do effective work. By the expendi-
ture of sufficient pains, any one indi-
vidual may prevent flies breeding on
his premises, but this will not rid him
of the danger from flies if his neigh
bors are careless.
There is. however, no excuse at the
present time for permitting flies to
breed in anything like the numbers
in which they have done in the past.
The vast majority of flies develop
from eggs which are laid in horse
manure, and there are two simple
ways of destroying the larvae, as the
young insects or maggots, which hatch
from the eggs are called. Sprinkling
the manure heap with solution pre-
pared by adding Y pound of powdered
hellebore to 10 gallons of water will
destroy, according to recent expert
ments, from SO to 80 per cent of the
larvae in the manure. If this is not
done. the use of a simple maggot trap
will prove equally effective. By ex-
iperiments carried on by the Bureau Of
Entomology of the U. S. Department
of Agriculture at the Maryland Agri-
cultural College, it was found that the
trap used there destroyed fully SO per
cent of all the maggots or larvae
breeding in a given lot of manure.
Such a trap is simplicity itself, con-
sisting merely of a Slated platform
standing about l foot high upon a con-
crete floor which is surrounded by
rim or wall of concrete inches high.
The floor slopes a little toward one
corner in order to allow liquid from
the manure to be drained off into
small cistern. Ordinarily, however,
this drain is plugge9 with q stopper
and the concrete floor filed with wa
ter to depth of / inch in the shallow
est part Each morning the manure is
removed from the stable and heaped
upon the platform. The flies lay their
eggs on it as usual and the larvae
hatch as usual. The larvae, however,
when about to enter the pupal or rest
ing stage, preliminary to emerging as
adult flies, invariably endeavor to mi
CRATE, crawling about in search of
suitably dry spot in which to enter
into pupation. In the maggot trap,
therefore, as soon as the larvae at
tempt to leave the manure on which
they have been feeding they will fall
C1IOQSh inc OpChlAS3o Al biN CAeAbINN
platform into the water below and are
drowned Each week the drain should
be opened and the dead maggots
washed from the floor of the trap into
the cistern nearby. A platform 10X20
feet in size will hold the manure from
horses during a period of 4 months,
or from % horses for about 20 days.
The Stats should be 1-inch strips with
y to 1-inch spaces between them.
Experience with maggot traps has
brought out the fact that these are
most effective when the manure is
kept compactly heaped and well mois-
tened This is due to the larvae's de-
sire to find a comparatively dry place
in which to pupate and, consequently,
they crawl away from wet manure.
Wherever possible, therefore, it is ad-
vantageous to preserve all the liquid
and because of it's own fertilizing val
ne. In the second place, the platform !
should stand not less than l foot above
the concrete floor in order that the
floor may be more easily cleaned. A
lot of manure need remain on the mag
got trap but 10 days in order to pre-
vent any breeding taking place in it. !
The maggot trap thus presents the
great advantages of being easily con-
and cheap. That it is effec- |
tive the experiments at the Maryland |
Agricultural College have conclusive !
ly shown. There it was found that it |
destroyed SO per cent of the larvae i
breeding in the manure and that the |
of flies around the College |
kitchen was reduced by between CT |
and 76 per cent. That the reduction |
in the number of flies was not equal !
to the percentage of larvae destroyed |
was due to the fact that there were |
other piles of untreated manure else I
where in the vicinity and that flies |