HOW TO DESTROY HOUSEHOLD PESTS
How to Destroy Ants.—Ants that frequent houses or gardens may he destroyed by taking flower of brimstone half a pound and potash four ounces; set them in an iron or earthen pan over the fire till dissolved and united; afterward beat them to a powder, and infuse a little of this powder in water; and wherever you sprinkle it the ants will die or fly the place.
How to Destroy Black Ants.—A few leaves of green wormwood, scattered among the haunts of these troublesome insects, is said to be effectual in dislodging them.
How to Destroy Red Ants.—The best way to get rid of ants, is to set a quantity of cracked walnuts or shell-barks on plates, and put them in the closet or places where the ants congregate. They are very fond of these, and will collect on them in myriads. When they have collected on them make a general auto-da-fe, by turning nuts and ants together into the fire, and then replenish the plates with fresh nuts. After they have become so thinned off as to cease collecting on plates, powder some camphor and put in the holes and crevices, whereupon the remainder of them will speedily depart. It may help the process of getting them to assemble on shell-barks, to remove all edibles out of their way for the time.
How to Destroy Black Bees.—Place two or three shallow vessels—the larger kind of flower-pot saucers will do—half filled with water, on the floors where they assemble, with strips of cardboard running from the edge of the vessel to the floor, at a gentle inclination; these the unwelcome guests will eagerly ascend, and so find a watery grave.
How to Destroy Bed-Bugs.—1. When they have made a lodgement in the wall, fill all the apertures with a mixture of soft soap and Scotch snuff. Take the bedstead to pieces, and treat that in the same way. 2. A strong decoction of red pepper applied to bedsteads will either kill the bugs or drive them away. 3. Put the bedstead into a close room and set fire to the following composition, placed in an iron pot upon the hearth, having previously closed up the chimney, then shut the door, let them remain a day: Sulphur nine parts; saltpetre, powdered, one part. Mix. Be sure to open the door of the room five or six hours before you venture to go into it a second time. 4. Rub the bedstead well with lampoil; this alone is good, but to make it more effectual, get ten cents worth of quicksilver and add to it. Put it into all the cracks around the bed, and they will soon disappear. The bedsteads should first be scalded and wiped dry, then put on with a feather. 5. Corrosive sublimate, one ounce; muriatic acid, two ounces; water, four ounces; dissolve, then add turpentine, one pint; decoction of tobacco, one pint. Mix. For the decoction of tobacco boil one ounce of tobacco in a 1/2 pint of water. The mixture must be applied with a paint brush. This wash is deadly poison. 6. Rub the bedsteads in the joints with equal parts of spirits of turpentine and kerosene oil, and the cracks of the surbase in rooms where there are many. Filling up all the cracks with hard soap is an excellent remedy.
March and April are the months when bedsteads should be examined to kill all the eggs. 7. Mix together two ounces spirits of turpentine, one ounce corrosive sublimate, and one pint alcohol. 8. Distilled vinegar, or diluted good vinegar, a pint; camphor one-half ounce; dissolve. 9. White arsenic, two ounces; lard, thirteen ounces; corrosive sublimate, one-fourth ounce; venetian red, one-fourth ounce. (Deadly poison.) 10. Strong mercurial ointment one ounce; soft soap one ounce; oil of turpentine, a pint 11. Gasoline and coaloil are both excellent adjuncts, with cleanliness, in ridding a bed or house of these pests.