1262 
Jhe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
October 4, 1924 
The cut-away picture 
above shows how the blue 
flame of the Florence goes 
straight to the cooking. 
The heat is focused just 
where you want it. 
Better cooking 
with this Jocuscd heat 
Nature Notes 
An oil range that directs 
the heat right on the 
cooking 
T’S easy to do better, cheaper, 
quicker cooking on an oil range 
that directs its heat just where it 
will do the most good. The Florence 
Range sends its flame right straight 
to the bottom of the pot, where 
there is work for it. This principle 
of focused heat makes Florence the 
stove that makes cooking easier, 
quicker, more successful. 
How the Florence saves your 
time, work , money 
Because the cooking heat goes 
straight to the cooking, things get 
thoroughly done in less time. You 
waste no time or energy in prim- 
ing, in trimming messy wicks, or 
in cooking on a weak flame. Nor do 
you need to waste fuel on a strong 
flame when a low flame will do the 
job—simply turn the levers and you 
have whatever degree of cooking 
heat you need. 
The Florence burns a clear, gas' 
like flame from the vapor of kerosene. 
It is not a wick flame, such as you 
see in ordinary lamps. 
The Florence is beautifully simple 
to operate. Easy to fill the reservoir 
with oil, easy to keep shiningly 
clean, easy to regulate. The ingen' 
ious leg leveler enables you to set 
the stove level on an uneven floor. 
A spirit level attached to the feed 
pipe will show you when the stove 
is level. And the Florence is beautb 
fully constructed and finished, with 
its sturdy black frame and gleaming 
enamel. 
An oil range you are proud to 
have in a handsomely equipped 
kitchen—that is the Florence. It is 
good to look at and to cook with. 
JfT The oven completes the 
stove. The portable Florence 
Oven, pictured above, is as excellent 
for baking and roasting as the range 
itself is for cooking. The “baker’s 
arch” prevents air pockets. The heat 
indicator on the oven door shows 
how much heat there is inside, and the 
patented heat spreader assures even 
baking—your roasts and pies and 
cakes will not burn on the bottom. 
Find out more about the Florence 
Range and Oven by writing for our 
free booklet, “Get Rid of the ’Cook 
Look’.” Ask about the Florence at 
a department, furniture, or hard' 
ware store. 
Advice About Setting Traps 
The surest way to learn how to set 
traps is to watch someone who knows. 
Really successful trapping includes a 
great deal more than merely putting a 
contrivance of steel or wood in a certain 
position. The trapper who gets fur must 
know much about the habits of the ani¬ 
mals he is after. A trap set almost any¬ 
where and in almost any fashion may 
catch something occasionally, but the real 
trapper knows just why he does each 
thing. Skunks are about the easiest ani¬ 
mal to trap. A good steel trap set in the 
mouth of the den hole will catch the 
skunk the first night it goes in there. The 
trap does not need to be hidden at all. If 
you want to catch skunks it is good prac¬ 
tice to follow their tracks every time you 
see them. By the time the trapping sea¬ 
son coipes you may know where there are 
several dens, each of which may be good 
for anywhere up to a dozen or more pelts 
during the Winter. In following the 
tracks other eiigns may be found which 
will help in the Winter’s work. Skunks 
usually den up during the coldest weath¬ 
er, but run on warm nights. The traps 
should always be out and in working 
order when a warm night follows a thaw¬ 
ing day. Also the trapper should be out 
the next day to see where the tracks 
lead. 
It is very interesting to follow the 
tracks of a big skunk after a warm night 
I in February. They start out from a den 
hole and circle around through fields, 
wood« and orchards. Many holes will be 
visited, and finally, after a journey of 
nerhaps two or three miles the trail ends 
in another den. The next night the trail 
may lead to a third den, or it may go 
back to the starting point by another 
route. Each time the skunk starts from 
one of the dens it goes to the next one by 
practically the same road, and a trap set 
in any of the holes visited will probably 
catch one skunk in the course of the sea¬ 
son. A trap in the den may catch a 
dozen or more in the same time. The 
only thing needed there is to have trap 
strong enough to hold the skunk and 
placed so that it is easier to step in it 
than not. 
Muskrats are about as easily caught as 
skunks. Traps set in the mouth of bur¬ 
rows, without any concealment, will catch 
many. It is better if the trap is set just 
under water at places where the rat is in 
the habit of coming out on land. A trap 
set in the mouth of an under-water bur¬ 
row is almost sure to catch many in the 
course of the season. I have known a 
single trap in a favorable place to catch 
a dozen or more in two or three weeks. 
A muskrat seems to have a particular 
place to dig roots and a particular spot 
to take them to eat. I do not know 
whether it has a special place to find 
river clams, but it surely seems to have 
a place to eat them. It will sometimes 
gather quite a pile of clams and then 
open them. It is not unusual to find a 
bushel or more of empty shells in one 
pile. There is always a landing place for 
each of these dining places, and a trap 
just under water at the edge of the bank 
will take fur. Such a trap should always 
be set so that the rat can get into deep 
water and drown, because the catch will 
always be by a front foot and, on land, a 
front foot is easily pulled off. I remem¬ 
ber one chilly morning about 30- years 
ago. I had set some traps in a roadside 
swamp about a mile from home. It was 
very good policy to set traps there about 
dark and take them up again early in the 
morning. This time I arrived at the 
swamp just as it was light enough to see 
things dimly. There was a big rat out 
on the bank. It rushed toward the water. 
There was a snap, a lunge, a splash, and 
I took a warm front foot out of the trap. 
The mink is related to the skunk and 
the weasel, but is not so easy to catch as 
either. Bike the skunk, the mink has a 
regular beat, which it follows time after 
time, and which may take several nights 
to cover. Careful study will show the 
places where it takes to the water, other 
places where it goes on the bank, etc. In 
one place it will always go under a cer¬ 
tain root or branch rather than over it. 
At a certain place it will come out of the 
water and run along under a shelving 
bank. Perhaps a week later it will step 
in almost the same footpx-ints. The traps 
should be set under water in these places. 
The trap, chain and fastening must be 
under water, and it is not well for the 
trapper to touch the bank with hands or 
clothes, or to go near the trap after it is 
set. It is usually possible to see whether 
the trap has been touched or not without 
going nearer than 40 to 50 ft. 
The raccoon is not so exact in its 
habits. It comes and goes. It may spend 
an hour or more in one small part of a 
brook and not come back there that sea¬ 
son. The only way to do is to set traps 
in each place where the coon has been 
working (under water, of course) and 
hope for the best. 
The fox is a different proposition. I 
once saw a trapper taking up some fox 
traps. He had just caught one of the 
pair, and the other had been shot two 
days earliei’. There were four traps in 
the mouth of the hole. I could not see 
the least sign that anything had been dis¬ 
turbed, but there were the tracks where 
the fox had stepped in safe places as she 
went in. When she came out of another 
entrance she seemed to find three of the 
traps, but missed the fourth, and was 
caught. 
In setting fox traps in dry ground 
every bit of odor of man or iron must be 
removed, and there must be nothing to 
indicate that the place has been dis¬ 
turbed. A “water set’’ for a fox must be 
in a place where the fox is in the habit 
of going. It must be free from any indi¬ 
cation that anything has been disturbed. 
There must be some apparent reason for 
the fox to go that way, some reason that 
is apparent and compelling to the fox. 
Also, there must be some good and com¬ 
pelling reason why the fox should put his 
foot just where the pan of the trap is 
hidden. In some books we see pretty dia¬ 
grams with the bait just so far from 
shore and a little bunch of moss just the 
right distance for the fox to step on when 
reaching for the bait. I have known 
many successful trappers who were never 
able to catch a fox. My own success ran 
mostly to muskrats and skunks. _ Mink 
and raccoons were pretty rare in the 
woods where I trapped. I have caught 
rats and mice in house and barns. If I 
were ever trapping in country where 
mink and coons were plenty I should ex¬ 
pect to get some, and if foxes were nu¬ 
merous I might be so bold as to set traps 
for them, but would not be likely to have 
any better luck than I did in seeing the 
one that lived in our camp in Southwest¬ 
ern Illinois. When we first came up the 
bank a fox jumped out not more than five 
feet awav, but we did not see it. That 
night it inspected both of us at distances 
of less than two feet, but we did pot eee 
it. Every night while we were in that 
camp it chased rabbits past within just 
a few feet of us, but we saw neither fox 
nor rabbits. Alfred c. weed. 
Fighting the Gray Squirrel 
A short time ago we stated that 
farmers in Oregon were conducting an 
organized campaign against gray squirrels 
or “grav diggers,” as they are called in 
that country. Many eastern people 
want to know why such a warfare should 
be carried on. Out on the Pacific Coast, 
these gray squirrels do a great injury to 
young trees, much as rabbits do at this 
end of the country .There are thousands 
of them in the West, and they have be¬ 
come a serious pest. Many commercial 
growers protect the trunks of the trees 
with wire screening, but the great object 
is to poison the squirrels and thus get 
rid of them. The County Farm Bureaus 
generally keep a supply of poisoned bait, 
which is really wheat soaked in strych¬ 
nine water, and this is freely used by 
many fruit growers. There are people 
at the East who will be shocked to think 
of this wholesale warfare against the 
“dear little gray squirrel.” We have 
heard people say that they would just as 
soon think of killing a baby as to kill a 
gray squirrel. 
Making a Crow Talk 
I have a crow on my farm. It has been 
with us for about six weeks. When we 
first got him he was unable to walk 
much or fly at all. He could not eat by 
himself. We named him “Billy” and 
whenever his name is called he is 
“Johnny on the spot.” If we do not pay 
attention to him he will either sit on 
our heads or shoulders and make it 
known to us that he wants to be no¬ 
ticed. I would like to know how to make 
the crow talk. Some people say by cut¬ 
ting their bill and others by cutting their 
tongue. I would appreciate it very much 
if you would let me know just how to go 
about it. J. R. 
The crow is really a remarkable bird. 
It is said that many specimens live a 
hundred years or more and it is quite 
possible to teach an intelligent crow a 
good many tricks. As for making a crow 
talk, we have a number of reports from 
people who say that the bird can ac¬ 
tually be taught to repeat many words 
much like a parrot, and he really seems 
to have some knowledge of the meaning 
of these words. People have told us that 
they split or slice the tongue of the crow 
at the end so that when it heals it has 
a forked appearance, but we consider 
this useless and cruel. It ought not to 
be attempted. There is no use in prac¬ 
ticing cruelty on any animal and we are 
opposed to experimenting in matters of 
this kind. Patient teaching, repeating 
words over and over, rewarding the crow 
with some dainty when he attempts to 
imitate, is the proper method. Tame 
crows are very mischievous, and have 
a trick of stealing and hiding anything 
that takes their fancy, especially articles 
that glitter. 
Florence Stove Company, park square.bldg., boston, mass. 
Division Offices: New York, Chicago, Atlanta, 
New Orleans, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Cleveland 
Makers of Florence Oil Ranges, Florence Ovens, Florence Water Heaters and Florence Oil Heaters 
Made and Sold in Canada by McCIary’s, London, Canada © 1924 f S Co 
FLORENCE 
Oil Range 
