28 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



swarm in kitchens and dining rooms where food supplies are ex- 

 posed. They are found commonly in 'box privies, which sometimes 

 are not distant from the kitchens and dining rooms. Therefore, 

 with an abundance of flies, w r ith a box privy near by, or with ex- 

 cremental deposits in the neighborhood, and with a perhaps un- 

 suspected or not yet fully developed case of typhoid in the immedi- 

 ate neighborhood, there is no reason why, through the agency of 

 contaminated flies alighting upon food supplies the disease should 

 not be spread to healthy individuals. That it is so spread is not to 

 be questioned. That under the unusual conditions of the army con- 

 centration camps in the summer of 1898 it w r as so spread to a shock- 

 ing extent has been demonstrated by the army typhoid fever com- 

 mission. And the remedy is plain. It consists of two courses of 

 procedure: (1) Proper care of excreta; (2) the destruction of flies. 



On many farms where intelligent people live the old-fashioned 

 box privy has been done away with, and there has been substituted 

 for it some form of earth closet. Where a good earth closet is in 

 operation, and the inhabitants of a farm appreciate the importance 

 of using no other, and where in case of illness the excreta of patients 

 are promptly disinfected, flies breeding in the neighborhood will 

 have practically no opportunity to become contaminated with ty- 

 phoid germs, except in the unlikely event (which future investi- 

 gation may possibly show) that other animals than man are sub- 

 ject to this disease. The proper maintenance of an earth closet will 

 add somewhat to the work of a farm, but this extra work will pay 

 in the long run. While it is true that a box inclosure, if its contents 

 are covered with lime every three or four days, will answer the pur- 

 pose, a much better plan would be to use a large metal vessel, the 

 surface of the contents being covered with earth after each opera- 

 tion, and which may be removed, emptied, and replaced daily. 

 Care should, of course, be taken to empty the contents of the vessel 

 in a pit constructed in some well-chosen spot, from which the drain- 

 age would not be dangerous. 



With regard to the abolition of flies, the best measures will 

 again naturally involve some trouble and expense. In a thickly set- 

 tled country it will become necessary for some such measure to be 

 generally adopted in order to be perfectly effective, but in an iso- 

 lated farmhouse the number of house flies may be greatly reduced 

 by individual work. All horse manure accumulating in stables or 

 barns should be collected, if not daily, at least once a week, and 

 should be placed in either a pit or vault or in a screened inclosuro 

 like a closet at the side or end of the stable. This closet should 

 have an outside door from which horse manure can be shoveled 

 when it is needed for manuring purposes. Each day's or each w r eek's 

 accumulations, after they are shoveled into the closet or pit, should 

 be sprinkled over the surface with chloride of lime, and a barrel of 

 this substance can conveniently be kept in the closet. If this plan 

 be adopted (and these recommendations are the result of practical 

 experience), house flies will have almost no chance to breed, and 

 their numbers will be so greatly redxiced that they will hardly be 



