New Britain herald., 1915-08-11
(Prepared by Children's Bureau, | S. Department of COmmerce.)


 S. Department of Commerce.) l When the modern mother sings 1 "Baby-bye. here's fly'' to her infant ] she changes the second line of the | old nursery song to read Let us swat 1 him. vou and l." The common house. l fly is no longer an object of tolerant 1 interest. but has become an object Of 1 hatred and distrust. He is known to l be the principal factor in the distri- 1 button of the germs of typhoid Especially is he regarded as the en- emy of the baby, as there is reason to ] believe that he carries about the germs of summer diarrhea and leaves them behind him, with other filth, when he lights on the nipple of the feeding bottle, or crawls over the sa IL cer of cereal, or falls in the milk. Thus he is a real danger, not only to the baby but to the whole family, and every effort should be made to do away with him.
 Prevent Flies From Matching.
 Flies may be kept out of the house to a considerable extent by using screens at the doors and windows, and those that get inside may be trapped, poisoned or swatted. But better than any of these methods is to destroy the flies in the larval stage, and thus prevent them from matching. The fol- lowing information is furnished by the department of agriculture:
 "A safe and effective weapon against the typhoid or house-fly has been found in powdered hellebore by scientists of the department of agr- culture Flies lay their eggs chiefly ln stable manure. Powdered hellebOre mixed with water and sprinkled over the manure, will destroy the larvae which are matched from the eggs. Since powdered helebore is readily ob- tainable, this puts in the hands of everyone a remedy for one of the pests that has been found dangerous as we'll as troublesome. Powdered hellebore, however, will not kill adult flies, which must be swatted or trapped.
 Breed in Manure.
 "It has long been known that flies breed in manure but previous methods of destroying the larvae there by the use of strong chemicals have been open to the objection that the treat ment under some conditions lessened the fertilizing value of the manure or actually injured vegetation. This is not true of powdered helebore. Gov ernment experiments have shown that the hellebore is entirely decomposed in course of the fern mentation of the manure and that even in excessive quantities it does no harm except to the larvae it is intended to destroy. ] Chickens picking in manure treated 1 with 1t suffer no ill effects.
 "One-half pound of powdered helle- bore mixed with ten gallons of wa ter is sufficient to kill the larvae in 1 eight bushels, or ten cubic feet, of manure. The mixture should De 1 sprinkled carefully over the pile, es- pecial attention being paid to the out CT edges. In most places hellebore is obtainable in 100-pound lots at a cost of eleven cents pound. This makes the cost of the treatment l a little less than seven-tenths of cent per bushel of manure. A liber- al estimate of the output of manure 1 Is two bushels day per horse. The l money involved is, therefore, trifling 1 in comparison with the benefits to the individual and the community from the practical elimination of the dis ease-spreading fly.
 Borax May Be Substitute.
 Although fresh manure is the fla vorite breeding spot, flies lay their eggs in other places as well, such as