132 HOUSEHOLD PESTS AND HOW TO FIGHT THEM 



weevils and roaches to get into our foods, and rats and mice 

 to destroy our homes and damage our plants and crops. 



Estimates made by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture show that over a billion dollars' worth of 

 damage is done each year to crops and other property in 

 this country by insects alone. An estimate is made that 

 at least a million dollars' damage a year is done by rats in 

 the city of Pittsburgh alone. But aside from these losses 

 the untold suffering and the many unnecessary deaths 

 caused by diseases which are carried by insects and other 



Follow the fly. What happens ? 



animals, should cause us to spend thought and time in 

 making homes as free as possible from these household 

 pests. Almost every day scientists discover some new 

 relation between insects and diseases. Many infectious 

 diseases depend in part, at least, upon insects as carriers. 

 The fly which to-day puts its dirty feet in baby's cup 

 of milk yesterday lived in a manure heap, and on the 

 way here may have stopped in a privy. This is not nice 

 to think about, but it is fact, nevertheless, and every think- 

 ing boy and girl should realize these things. 



The house fly in relation to our home. It is estimated 

 that while snakes kill perhaps two or three people every 

 year in the United States, house flies are responsible for 



