272 FUMIGATION METHODS 



the following letter. It is a valuable contribution, and 

 should be read by every wide-awake miller and grain- 

 dealer : ' * We have delayed answering your valued 

 letter until we were able to report the result of our 

 efforts to destroy the weevils in our mill. Following 

 the line of your advice, we ran our stock down low and 

 thoroughly renovated our mill from" top to bottom, 

 cleaning all reels and purifiers. We then fumigated 

 the whole building with carbon bisulphid. We dis- 

 tributed 300 soup-plates about half filled with bisul- 

 phid through the mill, and saturated balls of cotton 

 with the same material and placed them in all the reels 

 and purifiers. We did this on Saturday night, closed the 

 mill tight and left the weevils to their destruction. 



' * We opened the mill Monday morning and 

 thoroughly ventilated it before entering it. We found 

 we had destroyed thousands of the pests, and in the 

 reels and purifiers we had killed them all. In the 

 course of a few days a few insects began to show up in 

 the cracks in the floors and in dark corners. Two 

 weeks later we repeated the dose in the same manner 

 and obtained about the same results. In the mean 

 time we whitewashed the mill from top to bottom 

 (that is, every place that could be covered) , putting on a 

 good heavy coat. We have reduced the bugs to a very 

 small number, and eternal vigilance is the order of the 

 day with us. 



' ' We are still fighting them. Our plan is to keep 

 a stock of bisulphid on> hand outside of the main build- 

 ing. We do not think it is advisable to store it in the 

 mill. Wherever we find a place infested by the weevil 

 we use it freely, taking care to do it when the mill is 



