The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-11

tained in pantries. groceries. markets. i stables and the like.
 Success in-trapping is proportional to
 the attention and industry the trapper
 devotes to his traps and protection of
 other food supplies. Two kinds of traps are generally used-the wire cage trap
 and the snap trap or dead-fall. The trap
 should be placed wherever rats have
 been accustomed to come for feeding pur- poses, and should be more or less con- cealed, the snap trap by scattering dust,
 corn meal or flour on or about them. and
 the cage trap by pieces of sacking. straw
 or rubbish, leaving only the opening free.
 Highly savored articles, such cheese
 and toasted bacon, will more quickly at tract rats than will food without odor; but the idea that a rat can be enticed into a trap by the employment of 'oait
 more appetizing to him than the sur
 rounding food supply is fallacious. To
 the rat, food supply is a question of availability and preference is secondary consideration. H The destruction of rats by poison has always been more or less in favor. A
 preparation of arsenious acid or tphos-
 phorus, 10 per cent and suitable base. as cheese. meat of glucose, are the most popular poisons. Poisons undoubtedly have certain efficiency in riddng place of rats. but whether by causing their migration or their actual destruc- tion is somewhat difficult of determine ton.
 Rat proofing excludes rats from. the food supply, and deprives them of har-
 borage. Without this procedure. it is all
 most impossible to reduce the rodent pop ulation.
 Tn rat-proofing any building, the fol- 1 lowing parts have been considered: Ground, area. walls, ceilings, garret, roof, | bed spaces in general, ventilators, apan- doned sewers. doors, windows, outside | piping, water and sewerage pipes, down | spouts, wiring and air or light shafts. By the omission of some small detail an otherwise rat-proof structure may be- come badly rat infested.
 "The rat-proofing of floors of buildings is secured eitherd by elevation of the structure with the underpinning opening free or by marginal walls of concrete, stone or brick laid in cement mortar sunk two feet in the ground, fitting flush with
 the floor above. The wall must fit tight
 ly to the flooring.
 Food depots are the greater impor-
 tance in rat-proofing because they fur
 nish both sustenance and shelter for rats
 In this class of buildings are stables,
 meat markets, retail and wholesale gro
 ceries, bakeries, warehouses, docks and
 wharves These places are best rat proofed as to the ground areas by ths construction of concrete floors and foun- dation walls. Untenanted as they are at night time, rats might well enter door ways or windows carelessly left open or be Introduced concealed In the merchan- disc, and gnawing through plank flooSing obtain well protected hiding and breed- ing places
 Double walls with dead space between should be avoided, or if used should be rat-proofed at top and bottom with heavy wooden timbers, four by four joist or by a concrete fill Attics should be well opened, and kept free of dunnage | or other refuge for rats.
 Double ceilings should be avoided. es- pecially so in basements. Boxed in struc- | lures, such as uprights and roughly i'm 1 ished dwellings, plumbing, kitchen sinks and the like should be removed Miscet- laneous openings as light shafts, ventila- l tors and windows should be screened preferably by twelve-inch gauge wire screen with mesh not exceeding one-half I inch The grounds about the buildings 1 are to be devoid of rat harborage, ana premises are to be kept clean and free of rubbish"
 In seaport cities, where the rare species of the brown rat and "Alexandrian' rat prevail, health officials are asked 10 make surveys to determine the presence or absence of rodent plague. How to eliminate the more common species, including the Norway rat, barn rat, sewer rat gray or wharf rat. l is described as follows:
 By. starving him through the use of rat-proof receptaces for food and cov- cred metal garbage cans.
 | By depriving him of breeding places, | through the abolition of planKed yards
 and passageways. ] By refusing him admission to the com fort of your buildings through rat-proof
 construction and screened basement open ings.
 By killing him at every opportunity. | By demanding city anti-rat ordinances and state anti-rat laws.
 1 Byron indicted fluent and passionate Hove verses at the age of ten. Tennyson I wrote charming lyrics at twelve, and 1 Milton wrote epic poems before he was