15 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION: BULLETIN 198. 



NATURAL FRIENDS AND ENEMIES. 



DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND. BIRDS. 



These will be considered only in the relation they sustain to in- 

 sects, since this role in their lives is less copionly known, or at least 

 is less appreciated, than their offices in supplying meats for human 

 consumption, and assisting to maintain the fertility of the land and the 

 like. Chickens and turkeys devour many caterpillars and other in- 

 sect forms. They will often save the plum and peach crop from ruin 

 by the curculio if they have free access to the orchard. On the other 

 hand-, they are liable to scatter scale insects over an orchard if they 

 are allowed to roost in trees that are infested with scales. Chickens 

 and turkeys may be taught to follow the plow in flocks and will pick 

 up white grubs, cutworms, etc., in great numbers. The Guinea 

 FOWL is a most persistent and voracious insect hunter and, if allowed 

 some freedom, is a much wider ranger than other domestic fowls. 

 Pigeons devour some insects and many weed seeds. Pigeon crops 

 sometimes contain many of the pupae of the sheep tick which they 

 have picked from the wool of living animals. Ducks and Geese also 

 devour considerable numbers of insects. 



Hogs are very useful in contending with white grubs and sub- 

 terranean insects. If a sufficiently large herd of hogs can be turned 

 loose into an infested field the fall before it is to be planted to a new 

 crop, and continued therein until seeding time the next spring, they 

 will do more than any other agency to insure a good harvest from 

 such land. 



WILD ANIMALS. 



Rats: These animals may be destroyed by making a dough of 

 barium carbonate, otherwise known as barytes, and oatmeal, one 

 part by measure of barytes and eight parts of oatmeal being well 

 mixed together and moistened sufficiently to make a stiff dough. 

 Cornmeal may be used instead of oatmeal, or the barytes may be 

 spread on bread and butter, or on moistened toast, or on cheese. 

 Place the bait in the runways of the rats, a small bit in a place. 

 This poison has neither taste nor smell and, in such small quantities 

 as used for rodents, is comparatively harmless to larger animals. 

 It acts somewhat slowly, but this is an advantage rather than not, 

 since the sickened animals nearly always leave their burrows and 

 die in the open when searching for water. The stench which would 

 arise from the decaying bodies of the rats remaining in their holes 

 is thereby avoided. If one application does not rid the premises of 

 the pests, repeat the poison dose with a change of bait. 



