Rats in Nurseries. 137 



The watchword to unfaihug success in underwood growth is, death to 

 rabbits, rats, squirrels, hares, and other vermin that work havoc among 

 trees of all sorts, especially during their early growth, I for years farmed 

 land, much of it adjoined on two sides by underwoods, in which were 

 properly reared and fed from five to eight pheasants per acre, my crops 

 escaping with scarcely appreciable damage from them. I believe if 

 all the before-stated vermin could be annihilated, except hares, which 

 might be tolerated to the extent of one to ten acres for coursing and 

 hunting, that the winged game properly reared and fed would be tolerated 

 by the farmers, and all the outcry about the game laws end, unless with 

 those silly poachers' friends, who must have something to talk a])Out. — 

 L. P. L., in ^^Agricultural Gazette.'' 



Rats in Nurseries. 



In a letter printed in the July idsue of the Indian Forester, Mr. 

 Sparling asks for information regarding the best means of meeting the 

 ravages of rats in nurseries. 



As far as I am aware, no practicable and really efficient method has yet 

 been devised for exterminating rats, and for this reason they have always 

 been in every country the most formidable enemies of the young 

 forest. The usual method of sprinkling amongst the trees to be protected 

 other species which are preferred by the rats in the expectation of their 

 eating the one and sparing the other, is wholly insufficient when the rats 

 are in large numbers. Traps cannot be set in sufficient quantities to catch 

 all the rats. Poisoning is the best plan, but is objectionable because 

 cattle may be poisoned, and has usually been unsuccessful for want of a 

 proper method. All such operations must be performed on a large scale ; 

 it is useless to attempt exterminating the rats on a small area, for they 

 will always return from the surrounding country. 



My object in writing this letter is to give an account of a method of 

 poisoning employed in open sowings by Forstmeister E. Heyer in Giesseu, 

 which appears to me to have many points in its favour ; at least it seems 

 to be more systematic than the plans usually adopted. The experiments on 

 the method, which seem to have been on a very large scale, are described 

 at length in the AUgemeiiie Forst and Jagd-Zeitung in the numbers for 

 January, 1873, and February, 1874. A full translation of the articles would 

 be tedious to the readers of the Indian Forester, but I will do my best 

 to give a resume of the method employed. If Mr. Sparling wishes for 

 more details, and will let me have his address, I shall be happy to give 

 them to him, or to lend him the numbers containing the articles, which are 

 in Grerman, and are well worth the perusal of any one who is interested 

 in the matter of rats. 



The two principal points to be known are how to prepare the poison, 

 and where to lay it. 



VOL. I. L 



