226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



sides of the bread, so that it will soak in. The bread may 

 be then cut in pieces about an inch square and each piece well 

 sprinkled with powdered sugar. One piece should be fatal to 

 any rat that will eat it. 



This or any other poison should be put down at night in 

 places where no dog, cat or child can get to it, and the remnants 

 picked up and buried deeply early the next morning. Poisoning 

 rats in dwelling houses is not recommended, but if all water 

 and other liquids are safely covered or otherwise disposed of, 

 poisoned rats usually leave if possible and go elsewhere in 

 search of drink, dying in fields, outbuildings, swamps, or on 

 some neighbor's premises where water may be found. Liquids 

 in open dishes, bottles or cans, and water tanks in closets, 

 attics or elsewhere, should not be overlooked in covering. 

 When poisoning rats in barns and outbuildings it is w^ell to 

 have a small pan containing a little fresh water for rats to 

 drink from for several nights in advance, and then to stir a 

 tablespoonful of arsenic into the water on the night when the 

 poisoned food is put down. Thus the rats, in their attempt to 

 get relief, imbibe more poison, making their election sure. 

 When rats once have learned the effects of arsenic those that 

 recover will not touch it again unless it can be served to them 

 in a form that they cannot recognize. Also, some rats \vill 

 refuse at the beginning to take it in one medium, but may in 

 another; hence the different combinations in which it is served, 

 a few of which are here given. I wish to call attention to the 

 wide variation in the percentages of arsenic in these prepara- 

 tions. 



Arsenic and lard: Dr. Rucker says that the use of poisons 

 has proven "very efficacious" in the rat-destroying work of the 

 department in San Francisco, where, he asserts, arsenic and 

 phosphorus have given very good results. Arsenic, he says, 

 should be incorporated in some fatty materials, "such as lard, 

 sweetened with sugar, flavored with anise or musk and colored 

 a light pink" to denote its dangerous character. The lard 

 readily takes up arsenic, which, so disguised, is usually taken 

 by rats. A correspondent writes that he picked up three dead 

 rats "near the watering trough" the morning after such a bait 

 had been used. The proportions were roughly given by him 



