THE HOUSE-FLY 23 



crete bins and pits are preferable to wooden ones, but they 

 are more expensive. 



In the country, where it is preferred to remove the 

 manure once or twice a week rather than to store it, it 

 should be drawn to the fields and scattered thinly over 

 the surface. If the manure is left in piles or in large 

 lumps, there is still danger of its serving as a breeding place 

 for flies. But if scattered thinly, it will soon dry out and 

 become unsuitable for the maggots. A manure spreader 

 would be an admirable machine for this purpose, for it 

 cuts the manure up fine and scatters it evenly and thinly. 



Open box privies. — These are more dangerous in 

 a direct way than barnyard manure piles. The flies that 

 breed in these privies and those that breed in the manure 

 piles and afterward visit the privies are a constant source 

 of danger. The feet of such flies are sure to be loaded with 

 whatever germs there may be in such filth and where they 

 eventually visit the kitchen and dining-rooms the food 

 they touch just as surely becomes contaminated with 

 the germs the flies are carrying. Moreover, on farms 

 these flies are apt to contaminate the milk and thus 

 endanger the lives of people consuming it. City health 

 authorities are becoming alive to the dangers of unsanitary 

 conditions on the farms from which milk supplies come. 

 It, therefore, behooves a farmer to pay special attention 

 to these conditions, not only to safeguard the lives of his 

 own family, but to insure the disposal of his milk products 

 to the best financial advantage. There is no longer any 

 excuse for the old open, box privy, cleaned out once a year. 

 It is a positive menace to every house in the near vicinity 

 as well as to individuals living, perhaps, hundreds of miles 

 away because of its possibilities in contaminating milk 



