beginning to flower, dry in shade. Strip leaves and buds when full dry,
powder, and keep in glass. Save stems and coarse stalks to make tea.
Infuse for twelve hours, then boil for two, strain, and reduce by
boiling another hour. Use in suds a cup to the quart, or in whitewash a
pint to the gallon. Make an ointment by either stewing tender tips in
lard or fresh butter in a water bath until the grease is well colored or
by putting with it the infusion at full strength and stewing out the
water. Stir in a little flowers of sulphur, a teaspoonful to the pint,
for use on cattle or horses. Grease back of the ears, under the throat,
and along the backbone. Grease poultry under the wings, around the neck,
and on top of the head. Blow larkspur powder into the hair of dogs and
cats after bathing them.
=For Flies and Mosquitoes=: Stop the beginnings. Burn or bury garbage.
Spray all possible fly beds well with copperas water daily. Be prodigal
of whitewash wherever it will stick. Flush drains well with boiling soda
water and use copperas water or carbolic suds to spray earth on which
waste water discharges. Keep manure piles covered with fresh earth, also
wet daily with copperas water. Set fly traps outdoors wherever the pests
congregate. Fill a tumbler two-thirds with suds and lay a cardboard over
with a hole in the middle. Smear syrup on the underside for bait. Empty
twice a day, burning the drowned flies. Boil together two ounces ground
black pepper, four ounces sugar, and a cup of sweet milk, set the syrup
shallowly in plates—the flies will do the rest. The mixture kills them,
but is harmless to anything else. Oil of lavender sprayed will drive out
flies temporarily. So will rose geranium bruised to smell strongly.
Screen every opening with wire gauze or cheesecloth, make cheesecloth
covers, rounds with wire in the hems, to protect hot food, be diligent
with fly paddles, and avoid slopping, also throwing out slops on the
ground.
Mosquitoes, say the wise men, are a local issue, bred in standing water.
Wherefore leave no water standing, not even a rusty canful. Cover rain
barrels with screen wire, pour crude kerosene upon ponds and pools.
Begin early, before buds swell. Keep it up until frost. Examine cellars,
especially barn cellars. Mosquitoes winter in them. Kill all such
lingerers with thick smoke—tobacco smoke or from pyrethrum powder or by
touching off a little gunpowder on a plate. Concussion makes the
mosquitoes drop; sweep up and burn. Concerted action is imperative. If
no man liveth or dieth unto himself, how much less so any man’s crop of
mosquitoes! Screens and smoke from punk sticks, pyrethrum, and dry
pennyroyal are the best weapons against attack. Oil of pennyroyal
likewise helps. Smear lightly on forehead, hands, and arms before going
to sleep. Wilting leaves of the stately castor bean, also tender
branches, hung about will drive out mosquitoes.
Fleas harbor in light litter—hay, straw, leaves, most of all shed hair.
Flea-bearing animals have each their own species, which fight to the
death. There are also sand fleas. Fight with fire, smoke, water, oil of
pennyroyal, and fresh black-walnut leaves. Sprinkle kerosene on the
litter suspected; sweep up and burn. Oil sand beds likewise, else drench
with copperas water. Wet manure heaps with bichloride solution or
bisulphide of mercury. Gather walnut leaves in armfuls and crowd them
into places unsafe for oil or fire, as under piazzas, bungalow floors,
or low sheds. Put them also about rooms where fleas abound, tied in
thick bunches, and laid under beds or in closets. Gasolene where safe is
a mighty help. Paint floors and baseboard with it, in default of
bichloride solution. Painting with turpentine is also fairly effective.
Success is impossible, however, unless the flea-fighting extends to
animals as well.
=Bed Bugs=: Bed bugs demand eternal vigilance, especially in apartments.
Make bedrooms and closets as nearly as possible bug proof by washing,
after cleaning thoroughly, with bichloride solution, then filling every
crack, cranny, and crevice with soft putty. Lay a thin rope of putty
along the baseboard on the floor and crowd down upon it quarter-round
molding cut to fit. Nail fast, and paint to match the baseboard. This is
an effectual seal for dividing wall on a common floor. Set collars of
the stiffest putty around steam pipes where they go in and out. Renew
them as often as they crack and crumble, but do not trust to them
entirely. Examine everything monthly—bed, furnishings, chairs, boxes,
the backs of pictures, books, and stacked papers. Paper in mass is a
favorite lurking place. Have white slips for mattresses; remove, turn,
examine seams, and wet corners with bichloride. Paint the mattress over
lightly with bichloride; it neither stains nor smells. Wipe the bedstead
and springs with a cloth wet in it, and drench crannies unwipable. Wipe
the backs of pictures and of dressers, in fact, any sheltered and static
space. Wipe the floor with bichloride, if bare, and wax or oil
afterward. Sprinkle a carpet or rugs well with bichloride, then sweep
with a broom dipped in very hot water. Empty closets, wipe over, examine
all accumulations of paper, boxes, etc. A bug overlooked will in a
month’s space infest a whole house. Couches of rattan, wicker, or
upholstered are strongholds of the blood-suckers. Set in air and drench
with benzine or gasolene, leave standing a day, and drench again,
shaking, brushing, and beating between drenchings.
Wicker clothes hampers and baskets, also baby carriages, are other
strongholds. Scald hampers and baskets with boiling-hot soda water, then
paint over with turpentine and a little sweet oil. Use gasolene on the
carriages, applying with a thick brush rather than drenching. Repeat
twice in succession, wash everything washable, and sun for a week.
=Moths=: Moths in upholstered things must be got rid of the same as bed
bugs (see preceding paragraph). Clean rugs thoroughly, spray on both
sides with gasolene or strong black-pepper tea, sun well, then roll up
between newspapers, tie fast, wrap spirally with stiff paper, fold ends
neatly, slip over them paper bags fitting accurately, paste down edges,
paste a strip of paper over the edge of the wrapping. Clean heavy coats
with gasolene or benzine, crowd newspaper into the sleeves, crumple more
newspaper thickly over the hanger, fasten the coat, slip over it a bag
of pasted newspapers, pass the hanger hook up through it, crumple the
paper tight around the shank and tie, then fold over the bottom of the
paper several times, and fasten with stout wire clips. Moth balls may be
slipped in coat pockets, but will hardly be needed if they are hung in a
light place.
Store and protect tailor suits much the same. After cleaning fold the
skirt belt in six and fasten with a big safety pin to lower bend of the
hanger shank, then slip on its newspaper bag and fasten. Put on the
coat, then over all a bigger newspaper bag. Put inside wisps of cotton
tied up in net, and wet with oil of cedar. One-piece cloth frocks should
be hung the same as long coats, but have the skirts folded upward over a
roll of newspapers about midway and pinned or basted to the waist. Store
fur coats the same way after cleaning and sunning for several days. Put
mothaline bags outside over those of newspaper and sachets of sandalwood
in the sleeves. If moths have touched them before storing, lay them for
several days on a slat tray in a trunk with a big sponge saturated in
gasolene below. Keep the trunk outside and shut tight; gasolene vapor
ought to kill the moth eggs. Clean small furs as muffs, tippets, cuffs,
sun, sew up tight in old linen, sprinkle well with black-pepper tea,
then wrap in newspaper, wipe out their boxes with a cloth dipped in
gasolene, put in the wrapped furs, wrap boxes, and slip in paper bags,
then fold and paste together the bag ends. If no moth nor egg was inside
none will come out.
Fine things, such as camel’s-hair shawls, moth-infested should be
brushed and sunned, then wrapped in clean linen, over that thick wet
towels, over that paper, and laid in a hot oven until the paper
scorches. This is equal to superheated steam for moth and egg
destruction, but does no harm to the finest fabric. Sew up in linen and
store same as small furs. Steam is also sovereign for moths in carpets
where it is unsafe to use gasolene or benzine. Cover the infected spots
with thick wet towels, letting them lie a good bit over and iron first
around the edges, then all over with blazing-hot irons, changing them as
they cease to hiss. Repeat at weekly intervals for a month. After
ironing go along the edges, wetting the carpet well with bichloride
solution. A carpet to be stored should be sprayed with gasolene after
cleaning, then folded over double newspapers, and sprayed at each
doubling over with black-pepper tea. A long, narrow bag of moth balls in
the deepest fold adds something to insect insurance. Store in light and
off the floor. A discarded bed spring is fine to lay such things on.
Stand rolled rugs on end if not too long, and a little apart.
=A Blanket Box=: Make blankets clean and whole, fold in three,
lengthwise, roll up over a core of moth balls, sew in old linen, and
pack. Fill all crevices in a big packing-case with putty or plaster wet
with egg, paper with plain manila paper, let dry, then paint the paper
with oil of cedar. Give two coats. Put over the bottom a sachet of cedar
twigs or shavings laid on wadding and tacked between cheesecloth. Pack
blankets and woolens on this, tucking smaller cedar sachets into
crevices, also moth balls tied in cheesecloth. Put in white things
first, lay paper over them, then pack colored ones. Cover with another
cedar sachet, tuck paper snugly over it, then shut—the top must be
hinged on—and paste paper over the edges. As long as it is unbroken the
contents are safe.
Where storage space is lacking use a box couch, making sure with
bichloride and gasolene that neither moth nor bed bug lurks inside. Use
oil of lavender and pine twigs rather than cedar, omit the sealing with
paper, but examine now and then; if you discover the enemy do not halt
until he is forever and completely yours.
=Roaches and Water Bugs=: Powdered borax mixed with sugar kills them.
Set it about in saucers, sprinkle under pipes and on sills, also on the
bottom of closets and drawers. Lay clean paper over it. Once a month
remove paper, wipe wood, sprinkle again after drying, and put on fresh
paper. Burn every dead insect. In cellars or greenhouses mix a little
Paris green with the powder, dip into it cut potatoes, and lay them cut
side down, in the way of roaches. Gather up each morning, drop in water
as gathered, and replace at evening with freshly loaded potatoes. Pour
turpentine around water pipes and those for steam heat. Paint the pipes
with turpentine, doing it when they are cool. Paint kitchen floors and
baseboards after scouring with bichloride of mercury; beware, though,
using it higher. Keep borax and sugar on pantry shelves under paper.
Paint with turpentine at housecleaning. Fill cracks, crevices, and
knotholes with putty. Do the same with tops and rims of set tubs,
renewing it as it breaks.
=Ants=: Ants, black or red, hate the smell of camphor. Make rings of it
around dishes of food and pour it into crevices suspected as ant roads.
If they climb by a post or pillar put a tarred bandage around it. Find
the nest if possible and destroy it with boiling water or gasolene or
kerosene with a little camphor added. Beware of gasolene if the nest is
close to any building. Boiling soda water is safe anywhere except about
plants. There use strong carbolic soapsuds, blood-warm, with an
after-sprinkle of camphor. Gum camphor tied in net and hung in closets
or pantries helps to drive ants away.
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XI
CARE OF PETS
=Dogs=: Choose your dog, unless he chooses himself by adopting you, with
regard for environment. Big dogs require space—big rooms and grounds
outside. Small ones are “in drawing” with apartments or modest houses.
Breed is a matter of chance or choice. Toy terriers, toy Pomeranians,
spaniels, and pugs fit into restricted menages. St. Bernards, collies,
greyhounds, wolf hounds, and hunting-dogs in general are miserable in
confinement, also miserably out of place.
Teach him obedience first of all, keep him clean and comfortable, never
forget him, feed regularly, give constant access to clean water, and
always sufficient exercise. Otherwise don’t keep him; neglect is a
refinement of cruelty.
Vary the feeding. Dog biscuit day in and out destroys appetite and
thrift. Shift every other day to table scraps, oatmeal porridge,
cornmeal mush cooked with broth, or raw meat and bones. Give milk almost
every day—not too much. Be sparing of the raw meat; a zest suffices.
Tiny house dogs ought to have light breakfasts, with a hearty dinner
around two o’clock, and nothing more. Dogs running out need much more
food, otherwise they get into mischief. A hearty breakfast and dinner
with milk and mush at sundown is not too much. Feed all that will be
eaten clean; if food is left, diminish the quantity. Leave nothing but
bones where a dog may come back to it. Gnawing solid bones helps
strength and spirit. Small bones of game or fowl must be given with
discretion; they are crunched and swallowed so greedily the sharp ends
may do harm if the stomach is too full of them.
A flea-bearing dog is intolerable. Wash in larkspur water (see section
Insecticides) or carbolic soapsuds, and comb while in the bath with a
fine-tooth comb. Drain off water and fleas, rinse tub, rinse dog well,
dry with coarse soft towels, keep muzzled until fully dry, and away from
draughts. When fully dry, part hair and blow in behind the ears and
along the spine flowers of sulphur mixed with larkspur powder or
pyrethrum powder.
For skin troubles, mange especially, bathe well in hot sulphur soapsuds,
rinse dry, and rub well into the affected spots unsalted butter washed
clean of milk and made yellow with flowers of sulphur. If the trouble
persists and the dog is valuable, consult a vet; the dog, perhaps, needs
constitutional treatment.
Kennels and doghouses must be clean and dry, baskets and bedding kept
clean and free of vermin. Whitewash kennels and doghouses often, putting
larkspur infusion or carbolic acid in the whitewash, else mixing in
flowers of sulphur. Scald baskets, dry, and paint with turpentine and
sweet oil. Lay bedding outside and drench with gasolene. Burn it if
mange appears, else it will reinfect the animal. Do not let dogs sleep
haphazard anywhere they can. Give them comfortable beds, indoors or out.
A dog running free at exercise needs no clothes. On leash, with his
keeper merely walking or sauntering, a warm blanket, or, better, a
sweater, is essential in cold weather. Keep dogs outdoors as much as
possible in hot weather, but do not let them run too much. Provide
shade, especially for guard dogs. Teach all dogs, and especially guard
dogs, to refuse food from strangers. This is impossible with a hungry
dog. Full feeding guards against foraging at large, the thing which
gives poisoners the best opportunity.
Dogs perspire only through the tongue, hence the panting after exertion.
Let them drink all they will, but have the water clean. Milk is food,
not drink. Do not imagine it takes the place of water. Water, free and
clean, is held the best preventive of rabies. In case rabies is
suspected isolate safely, and observe for at least a week.
Pseudo-rabies, induced by fear, kills many more people than the real
thing. An ailing dog, or one tired, thirsty, or lost, will snap at
almost anything in his way. Do not on that account condemn him untried
to death. Rest, food, and drink, in confinement, will discover his true
condition. If madness is proved, kill, quickly and mercifully, burn or
bury, disinfect every space he has touched with bichloride of mercury,
burn movable boards, litter, ropes, etc. Grass or earth upon which
saliva has dropped had better be drenched with kerosene and set on fire.
=Cats=: Cats likewise suffer rabies; in case of it use the same
measures. Cats of fancy breeds are more decorative than plain tabbys,
but also more delicate and much less intelligent, withal lacking in
affection, and of no use save to look fine.
White cats, especially those with blue eyes, are more savage, less
affectionate, and much harder house-broken than black, gray, or
tortoise-shell ones. Often the white fellows are deaf. Each and several,
cats run wild for reasonable opportunity, yet they bear housing and
confinement admirably. They need raw meat, but not too much; a bit of
liver or a fish head every other day suffices. Alternately give bones,
with the milk and crumbled bread, which is the mainstay of their diet.
Give also at night a saucer of pure milk. Water and catnip, green or
dry, should be always accessible. Do not overfeed; cats are dainty
gluttons if permitted. Keep them thriving, but not fat—fat and
indigestion are the roots of disease.
Rid of fleas as directed for dogs. After drying, confine for some time,
first giving a saucer of milk with a teaspoonful of whisky or brandy in
it. For skin troubles grease all over with the sulphur and butter,
confine so as to keep from getting dirty, and wash well after
twenty-four hours in hot suds, rinsing well and drying with soft towels.
Repeat at intervals as long as needed. Feed on bread and milk, be lavish
of catnip, burn infected bedding, wash and fumigate baskets, or treat
with bichloride of mercury (see section Disinfectants).
=Belgian Hares and Cavies=: Both are vegetable feeders. They will live
in small quarters, but do better in bigger ones. Keep the quarters clean
and sanitary with whitewash and disinfectants. If very small, have
floors of loose boards which can be taken up and scalded. Feed three
times a day with grain, roots, and green stuff. Be liberal of the green
stuff. With a grass run the beasts will supply most of it themselves.
Scatter the food, and give only as much as will be eaten clean. Suckling
mothers need extra feeds, five a day instead of three.
Dust weekly with sifted ashes, corn starch in powder, and flowers of
sulphur. Use in dry weather, putting on at night. Have hutches big
enough to prevent crowding. Beware letting your pets overrun the space
at command.
=Birds=: Mocking-birds, cardinals, bullfinches and orioles, all of which
it is wicked to keep in cages, need very roomy cages, perches with the
bark on, much clean sandy earth on the floors, clean grain, green stuff,
ripe fruit, and insects, besides the egg-and-potato mixture which is
their mainstay. Tie heads of wheat, oats, or millet to the bars, hang
lettuce and peppergrass there, also chickweed in season. Put ripe
berries on clean twigs and suspend; force bits of apple and peach
between wires close to the perches. Have a swing, a roomy bath, with the
usual feed and water cups. Change the water daily, twice in summer. Put
one drop of carbolic acid in the bath for insect prevention. Boil eggs
twenty minutes, crush the yolk while hot with a freshly boiled Irish
potato, season with the least grain of salt and a very little red
pepper, and put into the cup. Keep the cage very clean, scald it every
three months. Hang it outside in pleasant weather, but never so the sun
at midday will strike full on the birds.
Give flies, crickets, earth worms, grasshoppers, but not hairy
caterpillars, spiders, nor wasps. Mockers sing almost the night through
in spring. To silence them cover the cage with something thick, set
where it is very dark, then uncover.
=Canaries=: A long body and thick smooth plumage are marks of a good
canary. Males only sing. Coat color varies. German canaries show many
shades of yellow besides mottled tints. Yellow-red Norwich birds owe
their giddy coats to red pepper in the food. Unless it is given
liberally at moulting-time their fine feathers come back dull and pale.
Birds are in full song at a year old. Younger, they have rarely been
well taught. The range of life is seven to twenty years; the last is
possible only with exceptional birds and still more exceptional care.
Teach canaries to deserve the freedom of the room. It helps in many
ways. Leave the cage door open; do not coax him out nor force him in
except as a last resort. Rather let hunger take him back. He will learn
quickly and enjoy flying about.
A metal cage with a movable floor is the one to choose. Wood invites
vermin and harbors it distressingly. Hang where it is neither hot nor
cold, away from draughts, but with air plenty. Feed regularly, but do
not overfeed. Hemp seed are so fattening they must be given sparingly.
The regular bird seed sold in packages is excellent if fresh. A dull
appearance is against it; canary seed when not stale is shiny. Empty and
fill the seed cup daily, clean the floor, and put down fresh gravel, red
and white. Keep cuttlefish bone suspended in the cage, and put in daily
some fresh bit of green. Lettuce will answer, but chickweed and
peppergrass are better. A pod of Cayenne pepper is good in sharp
weather. So is a little hard-boiled egg, lightly dusted with red pepper,
or bread crumbs squeezed out of milk and similarly dusted. A droopy bird
showing signs of diarrhea should have black-pepper tea to drink, else a
strip of fat pork rolled in ground pepper hung where it can be pecked.
Fill the bath every morning. If a bird picks himself after bathing put a
few drops of rose water or cologne in the bath. Bare spots from the
picking should be rubbed very lightly with sulphur and butter, putting
also a little under the wings and back of the neck. Ragged plumage may
mean a hardened oil gland. It lies just at the root of the tail and
furnishes oil for the coat. Look at it, blowing aside covering feathers.
If swollen and inflamed, drop on warm, weak suds from a medicine
dropper, dry very gently, and apply a little vaseline. Repeat daily
until the gland frees itself of the cake.
Trim nails discreetly, holding to the light so as to miss the tiny vein
in them. If cut, hold the bleeding foot a minute in tepid water, dry,
and touch the cut with vaseline.
If breeding, separate the pair when brooding begins. Afterward let both
feed the young. Provide soft food twice a day—bread crumbs soaked in
milk, scraped apple, mashed hard-boiled egg yolk, in addition to seed
and bird manna. As soon as it is safe move the whole family into a
fresh, clean cage, and scald and fumigate the other. Mites, the bane of
canaries, multiply amazingly. They would be invisible but for their
blood color. Feeding by day, they quit their prey at night. Throw a
sheet of Canton flannel over cages suspected, remove it quickly by
lamplight, and plunge in boiling water. Mites will show on it after
death. If they are plenty, shift to a clean cage at once and repeat the
cloth treatment until all are destroyed. Infested cages should be, after
scalding, drenched with gasolene and aired for a week. Scalding with
bichloride is also effectual; it must be followed by a scalding in
clear, boiling water and a fortnight of airing.
=Parrots=: If the parrot is for company get a gray African—they make the
best talkers and are best tempered. For decoration get the
scarlet-crested white fellows, or the yellow and green, or blue and
scarlet and yellow. Treatment of either is the same; feed fruit, nuts,
grain, a little meat, insects, bread, especially cornbread, and cereals
cooked stiff. Parrots learn quickly to eat and drink with their owners.
Coffee in moderation is good for them, but they must have water besides.
Some thrive better for drinking milk; indeed, the creatures are almost
uncannily human in many things. Let them bathe at discretion, provide
also a dust bath. Have a roomy cage, a tall, branchy perch, and a hoop
swing. Never tease nor tantalize; parrots are cross enough without; also
jealous. Do not leave free in the room with a small child. Their beaks
are cruelly sharp. Lacking insects, give small lumps of raw mutton fat.
Keep everything about them very clean.
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XII
IN EMERGENCIES