Part 99

Mosquitoes and Gnats.--To keep them away from the person:--(_a_) 1 oz. each olive oil and oil of tar, ½ oz. each glycerine, spirit of camphor, and oil of pennyroyal, 2 dr. carbolic acid; mix and shake well before use. (_b_) Sponge with 1 oz. camphor dissolved in 1 qt. cold water. (_c_) Dissolve as much camphor as possible in olive or castor oil, boil down the oil to half, and smear on the face and hands. (_d_) Mix 3 oz. olive oil, 2 oz. oil of pennyroyal, 1 oz. glycerine, 1 oz. ammonia; shake well; apply, avoiding the eyes. (_e_) Rub lime juice on the skin. (_f_) Essential oil of lemon. (_g_) Rub with bruised laurel leaves. (_h_) Dust the face and hands with potato flour. (_i_) Vaseline or petroleum ointment. (_j_) Rub on 4 oz. glycerine, 4 dr. oil of turpentine, 2½ dr. oil of spearmint. (_k_) Hang a piece of camphor in a muslin bag from the topmost coat button-hole. (_l_) Dissolve in a cupful of water as much alum as the water will contain--in other words, make the strongest solution possible of alum and water; add ⅓ proportion of aromatic vinegar, and ¼ of glycerine; keep it in small flat phials convenient for the pocket, and apply it constantly during the day. Rae mentions that he does not believe without its alleviating influence he would have been able to carry out his journey in Lapland, so severe were the attacks of these insect pests.

Driving from Bedstead.--Hang on the bedstead: (_a_) a few bruised leaves of pennyroyal; (_b_) a sponge dipped in camphorated spirit; (_c_) a bunch of elder; (_d_) a bunch of wormwood; (_e_) a bough of ash.

Driving from Room.--Burn: (_a_) Camphor in a tin dish over a candle so that it evaporates without igniting; (_b_) cow-dung; (_c_) wormwood; (_d_) juniper wood sawdust.

Moths.--Numerous opinions have been expressed from time to time as to the most effective means of preventing the ravages of the larva of the “clothes-moth.” The most practical may be summarised as follows. (_a_) When the number of garments or other fabrics is small an efficient plan is found to be to keep them exposed to the air and liable to constant disturbance, with occasional shaking and beating. (_b_) One writer finds it a very good plan to put winter things, such as curtains, furs, heavy shawls, dresses, extra blankets, &c., away in wine cases, papered inside and out with newspaper; when nailed down, every crack or crevice is pasted over. This should be done in April, before any moths are about; the clothes are then safe. Other articles which cannot well be packed away for the summer, such as dress-coats, are quite safe if folded in plenty of sound newspaper. (_c_) Another states that articles put away for 5 years in a warehouse were perfectly uninjured in all cases where they were _completely_ wrapped in linen, while every part not thus protected was more or less destroyed by moth. (_d_) One experimenter placed 4 moths in the balance, and found that they weighed 2¾ gr. They were then placed in a watch-glass, and dried over the steam of boiling water. There remained ·830 gr., say 30 per cent., or, in other terms, if 100 lb. of the grubs were dried they would lose 70 lb. or 7 gal. of water (and this is exclusive of what the insect must have lost in perspiration and other animal functions). The remedy which suggested itself was, that if we could render our garments absolutely dry, even if the mother moth should deposit her eggs, they could not grow or live in the absolute absence of moisture; and that if we could place our garments for a short time, during the moth season, May and June, in a close chamber, heated by steam pipes to the boiling point, aided by a little chloride of calcium, on trays to absorb moisture, the necessary conditions would be met; and even if the mother moth had succeeded in depositing her eggs before the hot chamber process had been applied, it would still prove effective, as the eggs would be hard-boiled and rendered unproductive. Possibly if drying ovens were kept available at a small charge, they would find extensive employ, as the losses incurred by dealers in furs is immense; and in private families for the treatment of clothing, blankets, and other articles they would be of great value. (_e_) The use of a vacuum and hot gases has been under experiment by the Government of the United States. It is believed that a large cylinder of boiler iron may be filled with woollen goods, either cloth or made-up garments, in unbroken bales or boxes; the top screwed on air-tight; the air exhausted by an air-pump worked by the steam engine, and the vacuum filled after a sufficient time to kill all active developed moths and grubs, with air which has passed through a stove filled with ignited charcoal or anthracite coal. This atmosphere will contain no supporter of respiration; it consists of nitrogen, carbonic acid, and carbonic oxide, and some watery vapour, with a little sulphur and traces of other volatile impurities contained in the fuel. The carbonic oxide is a violent poison. The other gases named are all either inert, unable to support life, or positively noxious. They will penetrate under the pressure of 15 lb. to the sq. in. into every nook and cranny between the folds of the goods, and into every empty pore of the woollen fibres themselves. They can be introduced at such a temperature as may be determined to be best and sufficient. Experiments at Nottingham reported in the _Journal of Applied Science_ show, if correctly performed, that woollen goods may be exposed for 3 hours to an atmosphere in a close vessel heated to 250°F. (121°C.) without injury, and that even 295°F. (146°C.) is not seriously injurious to the fibre, though it changes the colours of some goods. One difficulty in caring for great quantities of these goods is the labour and exposure incident to opening packages, taking out to handle separately each article, exposing it after brushing to the attacks of the moths, always ready for action at the only season when this overhauling is needed. (_f_) The larva of the clothes-moth will only attack and devour substances that immediately serve it for food, and will not gnaw through the most flimsy envelope, provided this is not edible. But still in these the most careful folding will fail to keep them out, as the tiny hatchlings will find their way through the seams; these should be pasted together, but as the insects are particularly fond of paste this should be poisoned either with a little corrosive sublimate or by triturating some camphor with it. Moths will never eat through brown paper. This must be of the right sort, i.e. made from old tarred ropes, and smelling of tar. Larvæ of clothes-moths, if they can get at nothing else, will feed on ordinary paper if kept in a damp place. The protection of the wrappers consists in their coarse tarry nature. (_g_) Dust the articles with alum dried to a cinder and powdered. (_h_) Mix 2 oz. snuff, 4 oz. cedar sawdust, 1 oz. black pepper, 1 oz. camphor, 1 dr. lupulin (hop flowers), and blow it into corners with a powder bellows. (_i_) Soak blotting-paper in a mixture of oil of camphor and spirits of turpentine, and lay it among the goods. (_j_) Prof. Riley says that the early days of June should herald vigorous and exterminating warfare against these subtle pests. Closets, wardrobes, all receptacles for clothing, should be emptied and laid open, their contents thoroughly exposed to light and air, and well brushed and shaken before being replaced. In old houses much infested with moths all cracks in floors, wainscots, shelves, or furniture, should be brushed over with spirits of turpentine. Camphor or tobacco should be placed among all garments, furs, plumes, &c., when laid aside for the summer. To secure cloth linings of carriages from the attacks of moths, sponge them on both sides with a solution of corrosive sublimate of mercury in alcohol, made just strong enough not to leave a white mark on a black feather. Moths may be killed by fumigating the article containing them with tobacco or sulphur, or by putting it, if practicable, into an oven heated to about 150° F. (_k_) Nothing is better than Mikado moth papers (Fleming, 101 Leadenhall St., E.C.), placed between folds of the articles to be protected, and occasionally renewed.

Poultry Lice.--(_a_) Damp the skin beneath the feathers and dust on powdered sulphur. (_b_) Scatter male persimon leaves on the floor of the house, or wash the house with a decoction of the leaves. (_c_) Thoroughly lime-white the house, adding sulphur to the lime.

Slugs and Snails.--Lay salt on the trails.

Wasps.--(_a_) Put pulverised commercial potassium cyanide, one or two tablespoonfuls, into the entrance of the nest without disturbing it or the insects; they enter never to return. (_b_) At noon, or soon after, when the insects are abroad in search of food, fumigate the hole with sulphur; dig out the comb and destroy everything in it; then place a wine bottle, half full of water, in the hole, leaving the mouth of the bottle within an inch of the surface of the surrounding earth; on taking it up next morning, you will find every one of that family safe in the trap. (_c_) Pour some tar into and around the nest and ignite it; take care to have the head and hands covered with gauze. (_d_) Spread arsenic and the dust of loaf sugar (1 to 20) on pieces of orange peel out of the reach of children. (_e_) Hang bottles containing treacle and water in the plum trees and other resorts, and examine daily.

_Rats._--(_a_) Mix together 8 oz. strong cheese and 2 oz. powdered squills, and place in their haunts and runs. It acts immediately, and the rats die instantly; whereas most of the pastes, &c., allow the animals to retire into their holes, where their subsequent death and putrefaction may cause great inconvenience from effluvia. (_b_) Make a strong solution of copperas water, and paint the walls of the whole cellar, then pound up copperas, and scatter it along the sides of the walls and into every hole where it can be thrown. (_c_) In the runs and holes, lay a mixture of tar and broken glass. (_d_) Feed them liberally for several days on a smooth surface, then damp the floor and smear it with caustic potash; the rats, in running over it while feeding at the bait, get their feet besmeared with it, which causes a burning or corroding of the flesh. At the same time they lick their feet to relieve the pain, and are either so annoyed or poisoned that they leave the premises. (_e_) Scatter lime chloride in their haunts and holes. (_f_) Having caught one, tar him all over, or coat him with paste containing tincture of asafœtida, and turn him into the hole again.

Traps.--(_g_) Scald common gin traps and set them at the holes, covered with sawdust, avoiding touching the gins with the naked hand. (_h_) Feed the rats for 3 or 4 nights successively, leaving the traps (box traps) fixed open and baited with the following paste, so that they may go in and out and feed at their ease. If the rats are numerous and the premises extensive, take 4 lb. bread crumbs, 4 lb. flour, ½ pint treacle, 1 teaspoonful essence of anise, and ½ teaspoonful essence of musk; mix the whole well together, and bait the traps. Several traps should be so prepared. On the night the rats are to be taken, bait as usual, having the traps set for catching. (_i_) Set a steel trap in the run and cover it with a butter cloth. A fresh cloth must be used each time. (_j_) Fill a barrel about half full of water. Make the cover ½ in. smaller all round than the inside of the top of the barrel. Drive a nail or wire on each side of the cover exactly opposite each other, as a pivot, and fit in the barrel, so that a light weight will readily tip the cover. Put the bait on top, in a firm way, and place an empty barrel or box near by. (_k_) Mix 1 lb. oatmeal or flour, ½ oz. aniseed, 1 oz. cassia, 2 oz. white sugar, all finely powdered; feed with this mixture for 5 nights at least before you tilt up the trap, which must be concealed with straw scented with 4 drops oil of rhodium, 8 drops oil of cinnamon, and 8 drops oil of caraway. The paper on which the food is placed must also be scented with the same. When you cease to catch any at night, feed again, and when you suppose all to be caught in one place, remove the trap to another.

_Snakes._--(_a_) In all probability, the acclimation or encouragement of certain animals which seek out snakes as their favourite food will do more towards effecting extermination than anything else. The mongoose enjoys a reputed pre-eminence in this respect which is quite undeserved--it need hardly be said that the “antipathy” which it is supposed to entertain toward its prey is a chimera born of an argument by analogy to human prejudices. The ichneumon hunts snakes to eat them; so do various foxes, tayras, rats, civets, grisons, weasels, genets, paradoxures, and other members of the _Viverridæ_ and _Mustelidæ_. Still more addicted to an ophidian diet are pigs; it is said that Mauritius was cleared of venomous species by a number of wild hogs turned loose there. Toads, frogs, fish, lizards, newts, and even slow-worms devour young snakes; indeed, it is only their popularity as an article of food that serves to restrain their increase, for they are produced in broods of from twenty to a hundred or more. But their greatest enemies are birds. Peacocks, in particular, will desert the home where they are fed in a district abounding with snakes; not long ago, six pairs of pea fowl were employed to get rid of the vipers on an island off the west coast of Scotland, which they rendered almost uninhabitable by their abundance. Storks, pelicans, cassowaries, sunbitterns, cranes, falcons, and some vultures are also perpetually on the look-out for snakes, while the scientific title of the secretary bird, _Serpentarius reptilivorus_, sufficiently indicates its proclivities.

(_b_) A pitfall of some kind sunk below the level of the ground in an infested district, and furnished with water frogs, and a cage of rats, or some such small deer, might help to rid the neighbourhood.

(_c_) For every one that may be expected to find its way into a trap, however arranged, a dozen might certainly be taken, living or dead, by those who would make a business of pursuit; and for capturing them alive there is no safer or better appliance than the “twitch.” This consists of a simple loop of string passed through an eye at the end of a long crooked stick, and controlled by the hand. Directly a snake is seen it is hooked out into the open, if need be, away from all shelter, the noose dropped over its head and drawn up tight, and in that way it can be carried, powerless to do harm, or deposited in any receptacle which is ready for it. Collectors, too, would find this little apparatus far more practicable than the net or tongs. Places likely to form a resort for the deposition of eggs--situations which combine warmth, moisture, and protection, as a rule--should be diligently explored; and rocks or other fastnesses known to be their favourite breeding grounds should, if possible, be frequently disturbed by blasting. (A. Stradling, C.M.Z.S.)

=Removing Stoppers.=--It not unfrequently happens that when a stoppered bottle has remained undisturbed for a considerable time, the stopper becomes firmly fixed in the neck of the bottle, and cannot be moved by the hand in the ordinary way. The removal of a fixed stopper requires judgment and tact, in order to preserve the bottle unbroken. One or other of the following means may be resorted to:--(_a_) Place the bottle firmly on a table, and hold it with the left hand. Then apply the right hand to the stopper, and pull it forcibly on one side, using the thumb as a fulcrum at the exterior of the neck of the bottle. If the stopper moves, the motion will be indicated by a ticking kind of noise; and the stopper can then be withdrawn without further trouble. This plan should be tried at various parts, observing to pull the stopper towards the operator, and not away from him. (_b_) By tapping the stopper on alternate sides with the handle of a hammer, or with a piece of wood, it can frequently be loosened. (_c_) Dip one end of a cloth in boiling water, and then wrap it round the neck of the bottle; the heat causes the neck to expand which allows the stopper more room, whereby it can often be removed with ease. (_d_) Or the flame of a spirit lamp may be applied to the neck of the bottle with the same effect. But in both cases the operation must be performed quickly, in order that the heat may not get at the stopper and expand it, for if such is the case, it remains as firmly fixed as before. (_e_) Pass a piece of strong twine round the neck of the bottle and fix one end of the string to a hook; the neck will be heated by the friction occasioned by drawing the bottle rapidly backwards and forwards, the bottle being held in one hand, and one end of the string in the other. The heat expands the neck as before described. (_f_) Stoppers are sometimes fixed by the coagulating or crystallisation of substances between the inside neck of the bottle and the stopper. The application of oil, or water, or muriatic acid, to the top of the bottle, will often dissolve away so much of the hard matter as to render the removal of the stopper easy. (_g_) When the fixed stopper of a glass bottle resists all management--such as warming the neck with a cloth wet with warm water, by tapping, and by the wrench, or by all these in combination--there is another means which will frequently succeed. Let the bottle be inverted, so as to stand on the stopper in a vessel of water so filled that the water reaches up to the shoulder of the bottle, but not to the label. Two or three nights of this treatment may be required sometimes before the stopper will yield. (_h_) Another method is to use a stopper extractor. This can easily be made out of a block of wood 3 in. square and 2 in. thick, by cutting a hole through its centre large enough to receive the head of the stopper. The use of the above is preferable to pulling out two drawers, sticking the head of the stopper between them, and twisting the bottle round. To apply the extractor, it is placed over the stopper, and grasped firmly in one hand, while the neck of the bottle is held by the other. A gentle, but firm and steady twisting motion is then used, care being taken to keep both hands moving in the same plane, but in opposite directions. If the pressure be applied too vigorously or spasmodically, or if the lines of the direction of the opposite forces be not quite parallel, there is a danger of wrenching off the head of the stopper or breaking the neck of the bottle.

=Housekeeping.=--Volumes might be written on this subject, with column after column of figures to illustrate exactly how much of the annual income should be expended on each item; but when done, the labour would be practically fruitless, for the simple reason that each household has its own special wants. The skill and knowledge of the housewife are constantly devoted to the solution of the question how to supply the needs of the house. No brief summary of hints or information can help her. Every topic discussed in this volume has a bearing on the subject and must be studied. A few words of advice may be offered:--(1) Keep account of every penny received and spent. (2) Pay cash. (3) Study quality before price: cheap things are seldom economical. (4) Avoid both extravagance and waste. (5) Trust nothing to the servants. (6) Consult the index of this volume whenever you are in doubt.

=Marketing.=--The following observations condensed from two series of articles in that inestimable journal _The Queen_, will indicate what is in season during each month of the year; they will also contain suggestions as to the best mode of marketing and the signs and symptoms by which the quality of foods may be judged. Obviously remarks on the latter heads when once made will not need repetition.

January.