The rat is the worst animal pest in the world.
From its home among filth it visits dwellings and storerooms to pollute
and destroy human food.
It carries bubonic plague and many other diseases fatal to man and has
been responsible for more untimely deaths among human beings than all
the wars of history.
In the United States rats and mice each year destroy crops and other
property valued at over $200,000,000.
This destruction is equivalent to the gross earnings of an army of over
200,000 men.
On many a farm, if the grain eaten and wasted by rats and mice could be
sold, the proceeds would more than pay all the farmer's taxes.
The common brown rat breeds 6 to 10 times a year and produces an average
of 10 young at a litter. Young females breed when only three or four
months old.
At this rate a pair of rats, breeding uninterruptedly and without
deaths, would at the end of three years (18 generations) be increased to
359,709,482 individuals.
For centuries the world has been fighting rats without organization and
at the same time has been feeding them and building for them fortresses
for concealment. If we are to fight them on equal terms we must deny
them food and hiding places. We must organize and unite to rid
communities of these pests. The time to begin is now.