306 NA TURE-STUD Y REVIEW (10:8— Oct., 1914 



a. Annoyance, filth in foods, fly-specking of the windows, chandeliers, ceil- 

 ings and woodwork. Cost of labor in cleaning up the filth of flies. 



b. Filth — disease infections carried by flies — typhoid cases in neighbor- 

 hood, summer complaint of infants, ditto, tuberculosis, ditto, any others? 

 (5,000,000 cases of typhoid yearly for the country with about 50,000 deaths, 

 one-third of which, probably due to flies. Forty-nine thousand infants die 

 under two years of age, and 7,600 over two years, by filth infections of acute 

 dysentery; number of tuberculosis cases, unknown.) 



c. Different kinds of flies, known to the class? (There are 43,000 species 

 of flies known in all.) Distinguish house, or typhoid fly by aopearance, habit, 

 veining of wings — with a magnifying glass. Learn to know the stable fly, the 

 fly that bites cows and horses and people, in the same way. (This fly has just 

 been convicted of carrying infection of infantile paralysis.) 



Fly screens disagreeable and expensive. Cost for different families per year. 

 (Expense for U. S. annually, estimated at .•^12,500,000.) 



d. Life history: Number of eggs laid by a fly? Where laid? Maggots, 

 found in horse manure and all sorts of decaying animal or vegetable filth (Pro- 

 fessor Forbes bred horse flies out of snuff from a druggist's counter.) 



Since eggs are laid before material is put into manure boxes or pits, it does 

 little good to make these places "fly tight," and is very hard to keep them so. 



Maggots hard to kill — experiment in school-room with kerosene, strong al- 

 cohol, copperas, lime, other chemicals. (Buried six feet deep. Stiles found 

 that they worked their way to the surface.) 



e. Foods of adult fly? Substances that attract them most strongly? Dis- 

 tance flies travel? Most effective means of killing adult flies? Best traps? 

 Poisons? Out-door methods of extermination? 



/. Plans for enlisting every member of the community to keep his premises 

 free from flies? Experience of other places? Flyless homes and cities? 



A GRAPE VINE 



The grape has been cultivated since prehistoric times. The suggestion is 

 often made that it may have been the first plant to be selected, to attract the 

 attention possibly of some primitive boy or girl, and be planted or encour- 

 aged to grow and be trained over the home of man. 



Among the many wholesome garden interests here is one of more permanent 

 relation to the home. A grape vine can be obtained for the price of a package 

 of seeds or a bulb and it will live for centuries. No plant is more easily grown 

 or possesses greater aesthetic, educational and practical possibilities. It re- 

 quires so little ground space that every child ought to be able to find a place 

 to plant his vine, where he can train it over a back porch, a fence or a blank 

 wall, 



a. How many of the children have grape vines of their own? How did 

 they get them? Varieties? Age? Size? Yearly crop? 



b. Methods of propagation? By layers? Cuttings? New varieties by 

 seeds? 



c. Best ways of transplanting a vine? Training? Feeding or fertilizing? 

 Watering? Thinning blossoms? Summer and fall pruning? 



d. Stories of grape vines? Origin of varieties? Exhibition of grapes grown 

 by the school? 



TAMING BIRDS ABOUT THE HOME 



In the sweetest of all songs "Home Sweet Home" among the memories that 

 cling to the wanderer's heart are those of the "Birds singing gaily that came at 

 my call; Give me these and the peace of mind dearer than all." How many 

 of us have these memories? Among our 20,000,000 homes, how many are 

 there around which the birds sing blithely and come at the children's call? 

 What kind of a country should we have ; what kind of homes ; what kind of child- 

 ren, if this were livingly true of all of them? It has long been a dream of mine, 

 perhaps the dearest dream in my whole galaxy of dreams, to have this true of 

 every home and of every child in our beloved countr3^ Truly this relation to 



