Show Uncle Sam Urges Campaign on Rodents t RAT CLUBS and other societies for 1 systematic warfare on destructive rodents may leap Into popular favor among housekeepers now that the government has otllclally sanctioned this method of extermination of the worst mammal pest In tho United States The rat has been recognized by tho government as a problem Its activity activ-ity In disseminating Infectious diseases dis-eases has long loomed up us a danger dan-ger signal to the health authorities and losses from its depredations run Into many million dollars a year according ac-cording to an oBlclal statement Just Issued by the department of ugr culture cul-ture Dr David E Lautz of the bureau of biological survey has taken vigorous hold of the question and thus ho proceeds pro-ceeds to throw a bomb Into tho camp of believers in the cat as a rat de t troyer However valuable cats may be as mousers few of them learn to catch rats Tho ordinary house cat Is too well fed and consequently too lazy to undertake tho capture of any anImal as formidable as the brown rat Dints are much moro to Its liking Rats hove developed so much Intel llgenco and such extraordinary caution that attempts to exterminate them have rorely succeeded Thp failures have been due not so much to a lack of effective methods as a lack of certain cer-tain piecautlons and absence of concerted con-certed action mho department In a bulletin cuiphn sizes the Importance of rat clubs and suggests that Interest In organized rat hunts may bo stimulated by offering prizes or rewards in various communities commu-nities to tho Individual hauling forth the greatest number of dead rats after ono of tho crusades Pamphlets dealing with the rodent problem and suggestive of ways In which tho rat may bo eventually routed rout-ed from Its haunts havo been scattered scat-tered broadcast among the farms and villages all over time United States and the department expects to make Its campaign in this direction one ot I thoroughness |