CONTROL MEASURES 147 



periodicals, and the makers are anxious to furnish all needed 

 information as to their proper use. A few simple and in- 

 expensive things will serve the needs of the ordinary house- 

 holder. He probably can do not better than to buy standard 

 commercial preparations, and then follow the directions 

 that are printed on the packages. 



4. Repellants. — These are as varied as are the means 

 whereby they are applied. "Tangle-foot" is applied as a 

 band around the trunks of trees to keep the wingless females 

 of the spring canker worm from crawling up the trunks to 

 lay their eggs. Finely powdered borax is shot from a powder 

 gun into the retreats of cockroaches. Naphthalene and moth 

 balls are put into the chest where woolen goods find summer 

 storage, or tar or cedar oil are used to saturate the walls of 

 the containers for such goods, etc. 



5. Traps. — The inventor has come forward with various 

 devices for capturing, dead or alive, such household insects 

 as flies and fleas and cockroaches ; and these when used with 

 due regard to the habits of the insects are more or less 

 successful. Trap lanterns will capture such as are attracted 

 to lights at night, but they have not proved of much economic 

 value. Other famous inventions for insect catching are the 

 "hopper-dozers" and "curculio-catchers," illustrations of 

 which may be found in books on economic entomology. 



6. Cultural control. — Prevention is better than cure; and 

 prevention on a large scale is practiced by all good farmers 

 when they rotate their crops. When, for example, the soil 

 of a piece of land growing meadow grass becomes heavily 



