POISONING FIELD MTCE. 59 



Additional Methods of Poisoning. 



The following recipes and recommendations contain useful hints 

 to farmers who for any reason do not wish to follow the recommenda- 

 tions already made : 



To protect trees from mice we take blocks of wood 6 inches in length by 

 3 in diameter, and with a six-quarter auger bore a hole 4 inches in depth. 

 Mix a dessert spoonful of arsenic with a quart of corn meal, or in that propor- 

 tion, put one spoonful in each box prepared as above, and put it under each 

 tree beneath the mulch. Renew the meal once or twice each year. This 

 process is a sure protection. — Lewis H. Spear, in U. S. Agricultural Report 

 for 1852, p. 153. 



Different poisonous preparations have been used with effect on these vermin. 

 The- following are among the best: 



Two ounces of carbonate of barytes, mixed with a pound of suet or tallow ; 

 place portions of this within their burrows or about their haunts. It is 

 greedily eaten, produces great thirst, and death ensues after drinking. This 

 is an effective poison, as it is both tasteless and odorless. Or, 



Two ounces finely powdered arsenic, 2 ounces lard, 10 drops oil of rhodium, 

 mixed with flour or meal into a thick dough, and pills of it scattered about 

 the orchard and nurseries.— E. A. Samuels, in U. S. Agricultural Report, 1863, 

 p. 272. 



These animals (M. agrestis) had devoured the succulent flower stems of some 

 hundred Lobelia cardinalis and the fleshy stems of Pampas grass (Anmdo 

 conspicua). After making a number of futile experiments, I noticed the ani- 

 mals feeding on dandelion seeds. Securing some ripe heads of dandelions and 

 cutting off the down, I steeped them in a solution of strychnine and laid them in 

 the runs of the voles. In a few days I had exterminated all of them from the 

 garden. — D. Melville, in Annals of Scottish Natural History, January, 1893, 

 pp. 41-42. 



In the month of February half a ton of one-and-a-half inch drain tiles were 

 laid down separately throughout the plantations and a teaspoonful of oatmeal 

 was placed in each, which was soon discovered and eaten by the mice. Phos- 

 phorus paste was then added to the meal and latterly small quantities of 

 arsenic. The plan succeeded perfectly, and in a very short time they were all 

 destroyed. — Sir Robert Menzies, Rannock, Perthshire, Scotland. 



A mixture of four-fifths flour and one-fifth arsenic is introduced by the aid of 

 a small palette knife into the middle of a drain pipe with an internal diameter 

 of about 3 centimeters (li inches), and this pipe is then put near the holes of 

 the mice. — Recommended by the French Minister of Agriculture in a letter to 

 the British Vole Commission of 1892. 



I shell out pumpkin seed, grind it into meal, and mix with strychnine. This 

 is put into a tomato or corn can, the sides bent flat, so that no other animal 

 can get at the meal, and the can then laid on the side. It is a great success. — 

 Method used by Fred. Noerenberg, Cascade Springs, S. Dak. 



FUMIGATION. 



Generally speaking, the various methods of fumigation for de- 

 stroying field mice are unsuccessful. Nearly all the species have 

 numerous burrows, and it is difficult to determine the occupied ones. 

 To insure success, therefore, all the burrows must be fumigated, and 

 the amount of labor and material involved makes the methods too 



