219 



MERCHANDISE IN TRANSIT. 



Merchandise billed for shipment often lies for days in stations and 

 warehouses or on wharves, where depredations of rats and mice 

 cause heavy losses to shippers and consignees. Similar losses occur 

 on boats carrying merchandise from port to port. 



Fruits and vegetables in transit on steamboats are often destroyed 

 or damaged by rats. Tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, bananas, 

 oranges, grape fruit, peanuts, and similar produce shipped by water 

 from the South, especially in winter, reach northern markets with a 

 large percentage of loss. 



In view of the practicability of destroying rats on ships by fumi- 

 gation, and the ease with which rat-proof compartments for stowing 

 produce can be constructed, it would seem that losses of this nature 



should be entirely prevented. 



i 



POULTRY AND EGGS. 



Aside from disease, the greatest enemy of poultry is the rat. The 

 loss from rats varies with their abundance and the care taken to ex- 

 clude them from the poultry yard. The magnitude of the damage 

 is not generally known, because much of it is blamed on other ani- 

 mals, particularly minks, skunks, and weasels. Much of the injury 

 occurs at night, and the actual culprit is seldom detected. Farmers 

 have heard that minks, skunks, and weasels prey upon poultry. 

 What more natural than to conclude that one of these animals is 

 doing the mischief, especially if one has been seen about the premises ? 



Rats often prey upon small chicks, capturing them in the nests at 

 night or even about the coops in the daytime. The writer has 

 known rats to take nearly all the chicks on a large poultry ranch, and 

 over a large section of country to destroy nearly half of a season's 

 hatching. Young ducks, turkeys, and pigeons are equally liable to 

 attack, and when rats are numerous, are safe only in rat-proof yards. 



A writer in a western agricultural journal states that in 1904 rats 

 robbed him of an entire summer's hatching of three or four hundred 

 chicks. A correspondent of another newspaper says, "Rats de- 

 stroyed enough grain and poultry on this place in one season to pay 

 our taxes for three years." 6 When it is remembered that the poultry 

 and eggs marketed each year in the United States have a farm value 

 of over $600,000,000, it will be seen that a small percentage of loss 

 represents an enormous sum. 



The destruction of eggs by rats is great, not only on the farms 

 where they are produced, but also in the markets. Commission 

 men and grocers complain of depredations upon packed eggs. The 



aHomemaker (Des Moines, Iowa), May 27, 1907. 

 & Missouri Valley Farmer, April, 1907. 



