November, 1908. J 



451 



Timbers. 



While the quantity of timber used 

 for ties is very great, and the problem of 

 a future supply is a serious one, yet 

 this class of timber is not the only one 

 which should receive consideration. A 

 greater length of service from timber 

 now used by railroads for bridges, tres- 

 tles, piles, fences and transmission poles 

 is greatly to be desired. 



The American Railway Engineering 

 and Maintenaince of Way Association 

 now consists of about 900 members, re- 

 presenting 200,000 miles of railroad track, 

 and including among its membership 

 the leading railroad engineers of the 

 country. The object of the association 

 is the advancement of knowledge per- 

 taining to the scientific and economical 

 construction, operation and maintenance 

 of railroads. The method employed to 

 obtain this information is through stand- 

 ing committees appointed by board of 

 directors. Each committee is appointed 

 to investigate a special subject and to 

 report at each annual meeting, pre- 

 senting results of its investigation, 

 followed by recommendations which are 

 published in "The Manual of Recommend- 

 ed Practice," after they have been 

 adopted by the association- — Hawaiian 

 Forester and Agriculturist. Vol., V. No. 

 7. July, 1908. 



RATS IN JAMAICA. 



Owing to many inquiries made about 

 rats, rat poisons, traps, virus and 

 generally about meaus of destroying 

 them, as a result of what we have 

 published in the Journal and our 

 circular to all the branch agricultural 

 societies, we publish this short article 

 to show how matters stand at present. 



Throughout the world an organised 

 campaign against rats is being carried 

 on. This, not only because of their 

 steady increase in numbers of late years, 

 not only because of the damage they 

 cause to merchandise and agricultural 

 crops, and to the eggs and young of 

 various domestic animals, has become 

 so serious, but more because it has 

 been discovered and realized that rats 

 carry disease and spread it more than 

 any other animal. No other kind of 

 animal is so common and so cunning. 



Rats are everywhere —in private 

 houses, in out-houses, in store-rooms 

 and in roofs, walls and floors, from 

 the garrets to the cellars ; they are in 

 ships, steamers and barges ; they are 

 iu cultivated fields ; they are in the 

 wilds ; they are by the sea-shore and 

 every stream and river; they live in 



trees, they live among rocks ; there is 

 almost no place where rats cannot 

 exist and thrive, and they are so 

 omuiverous that nothing comes amiss 

 to them. Here is our comparatively 

 small islaud, as compared to other 

 lands, with a width of sea around us, 

 we have not been so much concerned 

 about rats as carriers of disease 

 (although that may yet be brought 

 home to us ) as we are of them as 

 the destroyers of valuable crops. And 

 of all our crops, the one that is most 

 subject to their depredations is one 

 that is becoming of great and increas- 

 ing value to us every year, and that 

 is our cocoa trees, which, unfortunately, 

 lend themselves as place for rats to 

 carry on their depredations. Our cocoa 

 is usually grown through bananas, the 

 bunches on which afford a nesting 

 place for rats ; the cocoa, trees, when 

 full grown, interlock their branches, 

 and so rats can travel right through 

 a field without touching the ground. 

 Cats, dogs, and traps are ineffective 

 iu fields of this description, continual 

 poisoning is tedious, dangerous and 

 not of lasting effect, and the most 

 effective way to destroy the pests 

 wholesale, with safety to domestic 

 animals, is by the modern method of 

 using rat virus. There are several 

 preparations of this, which have been- 

 tested here. Unfortunately, they do 

 not appear to stand exposure to much 

 heat and light, and so, when used, 

 they have often been of no effect, the 

 bacteria having become inert. Often, 

 also, too little has been used, so its 

 effect has not been noticed. If, where 

 there are thousands of rats, one small 

 tube of virus only is used, and it is 

 expected that rats will be seen lying 

 dead wholesale, that expectation is, of 

 course, a mistake. Not more than 

 half a dozen rats may consume the 

 bait made from one tube, these may not 

 all sicken, but some, having taken little, 

 recover from their fever, and perhaps 

 only three spread it. The disease will 

 go from one to another, but, like an 

 epidemic of small-pox or scarlet fever, 

 works itself out, for it must be borne 

 in mind that rats are exceedingly 

 cleanly and sanitary in their habits — 

 although they do infest unsavoury 

 places — while sick rats are usually killed 

 by the well ones unless they clear off, 

 which they generally do, so that the 

 contagious disease spread by the virus 

 is soon checked by the rats themselves. 



They are cute and cunning creatures, 

 so that to keep up the disease, fresh 

 tubes of virus have to be used 

 continuity, or else it must be used on 

 a large scale at one time. 



