OCR Text |
Show YEARLY DAMAGE BY RTOPALLIl In England Alone It Is Estimated Esti-mated at $200,000,000; Warning Issued. LONDON, May 11. The yearly damage to food by rats, in England alone, is estimated esti-mated at 5200,000,000, according to a cautionary cau-tionary notice just issued to farmers by a government committee. The latter urges a ruthless offensive against the rat. It says in part: In your buildings, granaries and barns you nave an underground enemy en-emy who destroys our food supplies almost as much as the submarine. The nation cannot afford to keep rats at a moment when every sack of wheat is urgently needed. In the rush of work on the farm, rats have been neglected and have multiplied. They breed faster than any other vermin. The rat will breed when four months old and have from three to five litters in a year. The average litter is ten, but as many as twenty-three have been found. At that rate of increase, you cannot go on feeding them. But, unless you are prepared to feed them, it is an unneighborly act to keep them at all, for the moment you stint them of food they will swarm over your neighbor's neigh-bor's farm. At a moderate estimate, the English En-glish countryside is feeding one rat per head of the total population of these islands, and ten rats will eat, apart from what they spoil, as much grain as you and your wife consume. con-sume. Save the English harvest of 1918 for yourselves and don't waste it on "rats. What are you to do. Keep your grain protected and make the fullest full-est use of traps, snares, ferrets and dogs. Barn owls are among- your best friends. Close rat holes with concrete con-crete and glass. Organize rat hunta and encourage rat-catching on your farms by giving them small reward. Hunt your hedgerows with dogs and ferrets. Get yOur neighbors to do the same. We cannot afford to feed tho rats. We cannot raise too much grain; in fact, we can hardly hope to have enough to feed ourselves. |