FLIES AND OTHER HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 1 5 



this material be stacked for weeks in partly open cellars or back 

 yards connected with village or city stables. Common experience 

 and experiments by the writer show that flies rarely invade darkened 

 places. One of the most fly-beridden situations we chanced across 

 the past summer was an open barn cellar containing a mass of sloppy 

 manure in a hog pen. Such conditions should never be allowed to 

 exist. Manure can and should be stored in a fly-proof receptacle. 

 This may be a tightly covered pit outside the stable or a cellar so 

 dark or so tight that flies will not or can not enter. Both are rela- 

 tively easy to construct with our modern concrete walls, matched 

 lumber and cheap building paper. Even should eggs be deposited in 

 the manure prior to its being placed in any such receptacle, it would 

 be comparatively easy to provide, at the farther end of such cellar, 

 pit or vault, a tightly screened light fly trap. Any flies issuing from 

 the manure would enter the trap, and comparatively few escape to 

 the stable. It is entirely practical to make similar provision for the 

 care of other fly-breeding materials, such as table scraps, decaying 

 fruit, etc. 



Conditions may render it practically impossible to provide such 

 a fly-proof receptacle. Experiments have shown that horse manure 

 treated each morning with a sraall amount of chlorid of lime will 

 not produce flies. A cheap material which, according to Prof. W. 

 B. Herms of California, may be used for the destruction of the 

 maggots in manure, can be prepared by dissolving one half pound 

 of caustic potash in a half pint of water. Stir the cold solution and 

 at the same time add one quart of linseed oil and stir at about 

 hourly intervals for four or five hours and then allow the mixture 

 to stand over night. Next, add one and one fourth quarts of 

 commercial cresol to the soap formed and dilute the slowly formed 

 solution with 20 parts of water. Three or four days may be nec- 

 essary to effect a complete solution. Poultry should not be allowed 

 to feed on maggots killed in this manner. It is very probable that 

 some of the so called " soluble " or miscible oils, now on the market 

 under various trade names, could be used for this purpose, the dilu- 

 tion being about one to ten. 



It will be seen by referring to the habits of the house fly that 

 it is impossible for this insect to produce a generation inside of 10 

 days, consequently the frequent removal, at approximately five day 

 intervals, of manure and other fly-breeding material will prevent 

 the multiplication of this insect, provided the work is thoroughly 



