714 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



netting of fine mesh may be used for the inclosure. The scheme is 

 applicable at the removal of grain, straw, or hay stacks, as well as 

 brush piles. 



FUMIGATION. 



Rats may be destroyed in their burrows in the fields, and, still more 

 important, in levees and rice-field dikes, by the use of carbon bisulphid. A 

 wad of cotton or other absorbent material is saturated with the liquid and 

 pushed into the burrow, the opening being packed with soil to prevent 

 escape of the gas. All animals in the burrow are asphyxiated. Fumiga- 

 tion about buildings is not so effective, as the gas cannot readily be 

 confined. 



BAT-PEOOF CONSTRUCTION. 



The best way of excluding rats from buildings, whether in the city or 

 country, is by the use of cement in construction. As the advantages of 

 this material are coming to be generally understood, its use is rapidly 

 extending to all kinds of building. Dwellings, dairies, barns, stables, 

 chicken houses, ice houses, bridges, dams, silos, tanks, citerns, root-cellars, 

 hotbeds, sidewalks, and curbs are now often made wholly of concrete. In 

 constructing dwelling houses the additional cost of making the foundations- 

 rat-proof is slight as compared with the advantages. The cellar walls 

 should have concrete footings and the walls themselves be laid in cement 

 mortar. The cellar floor should be of "medium" rather than "lean" con- 

 crete, and all water and drain pipes should be surrounded with concrete. 

 Even an old cellar may be made rat-proof at comparatively small expense. 

 Rat holes may be permanently closed by a mixture of cement, sand, and 

 broken glass or sharp bits of stone. 



Rat-proof granaries, corn cribs, and poultry houses may be constructed 

 by a liberal use of concrete in the foundations and floors. 



Rats, mice, and sparrows may be excluded from corncribs by the use 

 of either an inner or an outer covering of fine mesh wire netting suffi- 

 ciently heavy to resist the teeth of rats. 



The common custom of setting corncribs upon posts with inverted pans 

 at the top often fails because the posts are not long enough to insure 

 that the lower cracks of the structure are beyond jumping reach of rats. 

 The posts should project at least three feet above the surface of the 

 ground. 



NATURAL ENEMIES OF BATS. 



The value of carnivorous mammals and the larger birds of prey in 

 destroying rats should be more fully recognized, especially by the farmer 

 and the game preserver. Chief among the animals that are useful in 

 destroying these rodents are the fox, skunk, and weasel, and the larger 

 species of owls and hawks. Rats destroy more poultry and game, both 

 eggs and young chicks, than all the birds and wild mammals named com- 

 bined, yet some of our most useful birds of prey and carnivorous mam- 

 mals are persecuted almost to the point of extinction. An enlightened 

 public sentiment should cause the repeal of all bounties on these animals, 

 and afford protection to the majority of them. 



