MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES. 
271 
The " Farmer's Magazine " gives the following recipe for 
keeping vermin out of ricks : — 
" Take a pound of nitre, and a pound of alum, and dis- 
solve them together in half a gallon of spring water ; then 
get a bushel of bran, and put in one quart of the liquid, and 
mix them well together. When you build your ricks, every 
second course, take two handfuls of the mash, and throw it 
upon them till they come to the easing." An agricultural 
gentleman states that he has found it so effectual, that he 
never has a rick put up in any other manner. 
Hoio to destroy Rats hy Suffocation. — Rats maybe destroyed 
in great numbers in barns, in the following manner. Before 
the corn is removed from the ground, get some common iron 
chafing-dishes, and having placed each on a couple of bricks, 
fill them with lighted charcoal ; then strew on a quantity of 
broken stick brimstone : this do as quickly as possible, and 
quit the barn while holding your breath ; if not, you may be 
suffocated also j close fast the door, and leave the building 
shut for the next two days. On re-entering the barn you 
will find numbers of rats lying dead round the chafing- 
dishes. Some may die in their holes, and will cause a most 
offensive nuisance, if precautions be not taken to prevent it. 
This is easily done by stopping up all the holes with mortar. 
Perform this operation again the following harvest, just 
before storing, and you will no longer have reason to com- 
plain of annoyances from rats. 
To heej) Rats out of Barns. — A bed of shingle, or very 
coarse gravel, from six to ten inches deej), beneath the floors 
of aviaries, barns, or any places infested with rats, will 
effectually keep them out ; for they cannot, or will not, 
burrow in shingle. 
To keep Rats out of Warehouses, <kc. — The proprietors of 
the bonded corn- warehouses on the banks of the Thames, to 
keep out the rats, have the wooden flooring, and the under- 
parts of the doors, lined with sheet-iron ; and the foundations 
of the buildings are sometimes set in concrete mixed with 
broken glass. These are materials too hard for even the teeth 
of rats to deal with, and so the corn is preserved. 
Rat' catching in the Gambia. — The author of ^' Elements 
of Natural History," tells us, that in warm climates rats 
grow to an enormous size, and that she has been, not only a 
