The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-08-18

ditions than wooden floors, and young
 deas are often found in the straw, feafherss and waste in such places.
 Where chicken houses and sheds arg' found to be infested the manure should be hauled away and spread in
 fields Unnecessary rubbish and dry animal matter, should be piled up and burned. The ground, hte floors of outhouses, and similar places where the breeding is supposed to occur should be sprayed with Kerosene or crude petroleum sprinkIedi about An Iinexpehsive preventive measure is the limera1 use of salt Scattered about the breeding places and them wet down. Semi-weekly thorough wet tings with water have Nbeen found to keep heas out of poultry runs in Texas and salt water from the Gulf is used extensively for this purpose along the coast.
 Where it is supposed that dogs. or cats are largely responsible for the infestation it is desirable to compel them toss sleep in a definite. place in order thai the eggs from the f1eas be concentrated and thus more easily destroyed. A few gunny sacks or a
 mat for infested animals to sleep upon will be found to contain a great majority of the eggs and these can be destroyed by shaking the cloths over the fire or exposing them on a
 bare spot to the rays of the sun.
 Where deas are found to be breed ing in the house itself the first step is to sweep up all the dust and burn it. Floor coverings should be re- moved, aired, and beaten, and the floor scrubbed with strong soap suds.
 Various insecticides have also been found to be effective but many of
 these are either dangerous to health
 or in Injurious to various articles. II ion
 hydrocyanic-acid gas has also been
 employed to rid dwellings of f1eas. Both of these have the additional ad- vantage of killing .rats and mice as well as heas but sulphur is open to
 the objection that it corrodes metal and injuresS plants. Hydrocyanic- I except under expert direction is
 except under expert deirection is
 quite out of the question. Tn, fumi-
 gating with sulphur four pounds to
 each 1000 cubic feet of space should be used, The sulphur is piled up
 cone shaped in a pan, which is pIac-
 ed in larger pan or tub of water
 to avoid hT1e from the heat. generated I A depresS6on is made in the top of
 the cone/ of sulphur. a little alcohol poured into it, and match applied fThe room to be furnigated should be
 tightly closed beforehand and kept closed from 10 to 2 hours At the 6L4d or rtI1aIs time the BOOTS and win
 dows- should be opened from the out
 side and the room thoroughly aired before it is entered.
 l Various methods of trapping f1eas have been tried at one time or
 another but none of these appear to
 be of as much practical value as the
 methods already discussed. It is well l to remember however, that the flea dan not jump upward. very far-a few
 inches being the usual 1imit-and for
 this reason if the legs are protected
 a person is rarely bitten. In plague- ] infested areas where it is of the ut
 most importance to prevent even a
 single flea, from biting a man fly
 paper has sometimes been wrapped around the legs and the heas that jump against it have been caught and killed in this way. In badly in Tested regions it is also possible to
 isolate the bed if sufficiently high, by
 taking care to keep the clothing from
 hanging down. If the legs of the bed
 are sufficiently rough to enable the
 1eas to climb up them, they should
 be placed in large pans of water or
 hypaper should be wrapped around l them.