INSECTS AND THEIR EXTERMINATION

It is not just pleasant to associate cockroaches and ants with our
kitchens and pantries, but where heat and moisture and food are, there
insects will be also, for they seem to enjoy a taste of high life and
to thrive on it. Keep the house clean, dry, and well aired, and all
dish and cleaning cloths sweet and fresh by washing and drying
immediately after use, with a weekly boiling in borax water; dispose
carefully of all food, and then wage a war of extermination. This is
all that will avail in an insect-infested house. Hunt out, if
possible, the nests or breeding places of ants and saturate with
boiling water or with kerosene. Wash all woodwork, shelves, and
drawers with carbolic-acid water and inject it into any crack or
opening where the pests appear. It has been suggested that ants can be
kept out of drawers and closets by a "dead line" drawn with a brush
dipped in corrosive sublimate one ounce, muriate of ammonia two ounces,
and water one pint, while a powder of tartar emetic, dissolved in a
saucer of water, seems to be effective in driving them away. Sponges
wet with sweetened water attract them in large numbers, and when full
should be plunged in boiling water. Another successful "trap" is a
plate thinly spread with lard, this also to be dropped into boiling
water when filled. In order to protect the table from an invasion
stand the legs in dishes of tar water to a depth of four inches. Ants
have a decided distaste for the odors of pennyroyal and oil of cedar, a
few drops of either on bits of cotton frequently sufficing to drive
them away entirely. As for cockroaches, there appear to be almost as
many "exterminators" as there are housewives; but what is their poison
in one home seems to make them wax and grow fat in another. Borax and