2466. Preston Salts
Take of sal-ammoniac and salts of tartar of each about two ounces; pound up the sal-ammoniac into small bits, and mix them gently with the salts of tartar. After being well mixed, add a few drops of oil of lavender, sufficient to scent, and also a little musk; stop up in a glass bottle, and when required for use, add a few drops of water, or spirits of hartshorn, when you will immediately have strong smelling salts. The musk being expensive, may be omitted, as the salts will be good without it. Any person can for a few pence obtain these ingredients at any druggist's, and they will make salts, which, to buy prepared, would cost, at the least, eighteen pence.
2467. Destruction of Rats
The following receipt for the destruction originated with Dr. Ure, and is highly recommended as the best known means of getting rid of these most obnoxious and destructive vermin.
Melt hog's-lard in a bottle plunged in water, heated to about 150 degrees of Fahrenheit; introduce into it half an ounce of phosphorus for every pound of lard; then add a pint of proof spirit, or whisky; cork the bottle firmly after its contents have been heated to 150 degrees, taking it at the same time out of the water, and agitate smartly till the phosphorus becomes uniformly diffused, forming a milky-looking liquid. This liquid, being cooled, will afford a white compound of phosphorus and lard, from which the spirit spontaneously separates, and may be poured off to be used again for the same purpose, but not for drinking, for none of it enters into the combination, but it merely serves to comminute the phosphorus, and diffuse it in very small particles through the lard.
This compound, on being warmed very gently, may be poured out into a mixture of wheat flour and sugar, incorporated therewith, and then flavoured with oil of rhodium, or not, at pleasure. The flavour may be varied with oil of aniseed, &c. This dough, being made into pellets, is to be laid into rat-holes. By its luminousness in the dark, it attracts their notice, and being agreeable to their palates and noses, it is readily eaten, and proves certainly fatal.
2468. To Kill Slugs (1)