FLIES

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23845, 14 January 1943, Page 4

FLIES

Sir,—As a sufferer from this invasion of flies may I thank you for your timely article in “The Press” to-day. All the liy killing agencies in the world will only keep the flies at bay if garden rubbish heaps and compost rot untreated in our neighbours’ gardens. In one garden I saw a very small heap of grass clippings which had stood for less than two weeks. Its population of “almost flics” must have numbered thousands. If rubbish heaps cannot be burned at once they can be sprinkled with a solution of Condy's crystals, a few crystals to a bucket of water. The same solution applied after each layer added to the compost heap, and then a covering of earth, would ensure a quicker result in the decaying process, and the certain elimination of insects. Where lawn clippings are used as a mulch, the same procedure keeps down insect life and prevents a number of blights. If these precautions were taken in each garden, no manure left above ground, and persistent poisoning carried on indoors, I am sure we should soon see a lessening of the numbers of flies, which, to say the least, arc an indignity to a good housewife. History has seen crusades for lesser evils. —Yours, etc., ANTI-FLY. January 11, 1943.