242 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Rat Shooting. 

 Many rats have been killed with small bore rifles, but the 

 surest and deadliest weapon is the shotgun. A thin straight 

 line of grain or ground fish should be laid on the ground 

 directly toward a door, window or loophole at which the 

 gunner stands. When the rats have become accustomed to 

 come out late in the afternoon or early in the evening to feed 

 on the grain or fish, the shooter takes his stand, and, waiting 

 until they have grouped themselves in line with their heads 

 together on the bait, fires down the line. If they do not come 

 to feed until after dark the gun may be lashed or clamped to 

 the building in such a way as to "enfilade" the line. Then it 

 will be only necessary to pull the trigger when by the light of a 

 "bullseye" lantern or an electric torch it is seen that the rats 

 are ranged properly. This method, with a cautious approach, 

 has been successful, but no "set gun" should be left loaded. 

 The charge of powder should be as heavy as the gun will carry, 

 the shot No. 8 or 10, and the distance not over twenty yards. 



Rat Drowning and Clubbing. 

 At The Farm and Trade School on Thompson's Island, where 

 the boy pupils are taught to kill rats, as all boys should be, 

 there is a henhouse built with a cement foundation, but it has 

 an earth floor and no foundation wall on the south side; there- 

 fore it is not rat-proof. The wooden floor of the main house is 

 raised about three feet above the earth, leaving a space below 

 it for a shelter for geese. Here the rats have burrowed in the 

 earth, and as it was considered unsafe to use carbon bisulphide 

 there on account of the fire danger, water was suggested. Two 

 lines of common garden hose were attached to a near-by hy- 

 drant, the ends inserted into rat holes and the water turned on. 

 All rat holes leading from the henpens to the outer world were 

 closed with earth, and several boys were provided with sticks, 

 to the end of each of which a piece of hose two feet long had 

 been attached. A fox terrier was introduced into the henpens, 

 and in about half an hour the rat war began. As the half- 

 drowned rats came out of their holes somewhat dazed they 

 were struck by side swings of the hose sticks, which knocked 



