46 HOW TO REDUCE FLIES 



of the slums of the town, and he entered a dairy shop 

 to use the telephone. The shop was very clean, and 

 the milk, cream, cheese, looked fresh and palatable, the 

 tables and utensils w T ere glazed and covered. But on 

 the window-pane and on the edges of a milk-jug were 

 ten house-flies, and on a cheese-plate were as many 

 more there can be little doubt about the expected 

 increase of the mortality. At the back of that creamery 

 there was the dairyman's stable, and here in the manure 

 were the house-flies and some blue -bottles breeding. 

 The manure had been removed regularly every few 

 days, but the horses' bedding had not, for it was used 

 over and over again ; here the fly-larvae throve. 



The question arises as to the most convenient way 

 of dealing with the horse's bedding in the stable. The 

 owners of such horses naturally object to supply fresli 

 bedding in the stable every week ; it is very expensive, 

 they say. Yet the tradesman has clean bedding for 

 himself every week at least, and it seems hard on the 

 horse that it should not be treated in the same way as 

 his master. However, the question of expense is there. 

 The remedy lies probably in cleansing the bedding once 

 a week, freeing it from manure, and destroying the 

 fly-larvae with petroleum or chloride of lime. Once 

 every week a certain day should be chosen the stables 

 and loose-boxes should be cleaned out. The manure 

 and refuse should be separated from the straw and 

 disposed of as usual, in accordance with the instructions 

 and usages of the local sanitary authority concerned ; 

 the bedding should be carefully spread out over the 

 cobble-stones in the yard and allowed to dry thoroughly. 

 With a pitchfork the manure can be separated, and 

 then any fly-larvae destroyed with a little paraffin-oil 

 it requires but a little obtained from the grocer. 



