How To Destroy Rats

RATS, at times, do get into a house or an outhouse, however carefully kept, and the housewife is naturally keen on keeping the pests away, or of getting rid of them when they appear. Here are a variety of ways found useful, and such as can be dealt with by all women folk.

When a house is infested with rats which refuse to be caught by cheese and other baits, a few drops of the highly scented oil of rhodium poured on the bottom of the trap will be an attrac tion they cannot refuse.

Place on the floor, near where rats’ holes are, a thin layer of moist caustic potash. When the rats travel on this it will cause their feet to become sore, which they lick, and their tongues be come likewise sore. The consequence is that they shun this locality, and seem to inform all the neighbouring rats about it, and the result is that they soon aban don a house that has such a preventive.

Cut some corks as thin as wafers and rub them in grease. Place the same in their tracks; or a bit of sponge dipped in treacle or honey, with a small quan tity of oil of rhodium, will fasten to their coats and cause them to depart.

If a live rat be caught and smeared over with train oil, and afterwards al lowed to escape in the holes of other rats, it will soon cause all to leave.

Take a pan about 12 inches deep and half fill it with water; then sprinkle a thick layer of bran on the water and set the pan in a place where the rats frequent most. In the morning you will find several rats in the pan.

Make two parts of common squills (well bruised) and three parts of finely chopped bacon into a stiff mass, with as much barley meal as may be re quired, and then bake in small cakes and put for the rats to eat. —Tanganyika Adveriser.