TO DESTROY GARDEN ANTS.—Mix together half a pound of flour of brimstone, and four ounces of potash. Put them into an iron pot or pan, and stir it over the fire till they are dissolved, and well incorporated. Then pound them to a powder. Put the powder into a glass jar, with a cover, and keep it for use. Infuse some of this powder in a cup of water, and sprinkle with it the places that are infested by ants. They will soon disappear.
TO EXPEL SMALL ANTS.—Mix a tea-spoonful of tartar emetic in two table-spoonfuls of molasses. Stir this into a small saucer of water, and set it where you have seen the ants. Let it remain all night; and in the morning you will find a great number of ants lying dead on the surface of the water, and the others will have been frightened away. Skim off the dead ants, and set the saucer in any other place where these insects have appeared. This we know, by experience, to be an excellent remedy for the little ants with which so many houses are infested, and which swarm over sweet things.
MICE.—An excellent preparation for expelling mice and rats is Levy’s Exterminator, spread upon bread or cheese, and laid about the places they frequent. It is a preparation of phosphorus; and after one mouse has eaten it and (of course) died, the others will disappear. It is to be had of most druggists; and will also destroy cockroaches, by spreading it on bits of cake or something similar, and laying it at night on the kitchen hearth, and in the closets. We highly recommend it.
If you propose to destroy a mouse by arsenic spread on bread and butter, sprinkle on the arsenic a drop or two of oil of rhodium, and the mouse will unfailingly be attracted to the poison. Place beside it a saucer of water, and as soon as he has eaten of the poisoned bread and butter, he will drink, and then die on the spot.
Oil of aniseed, spread on the bait, will attract them into a trap.
TO DESTROY CATERPILLARS.—Mix together twelve ounces of powdered quick-lime, two ounces of snuff, two ounces of fine salt, and two ounces of powdered sulphur. Strew this mixture over the caterpillars, or dissolve it in five gallons of water; keep it in a convenient vessel, and sprinkle with it places where they abound.
Any garden insects may be destroyed in this manner.