TO POISON SPARROWS.
To Prepare One Bushel of Wheat. — Purchase one ounce bottle of Strychnine (sold at 10s. each) and a small quantity of Phosphorus—say one shilling's worth. Be sure and get the best poison.
Thoroughly dissolve the ounce of strychnine in half a pint of boiling vinegar, then add it to half a gallon or so of boiling water ; next put in the phosphorus. Stir the liquor well, and pour it on the wheat, which may be contained in a cask, tub, pot, tin, or iron vessel. Stir the liquor well into the wheat, cover it with a sack or cloth, in order to retain the heat and steam, so that the grain may most fully absorb the poison. Let the wheat stay in steep say twelve or fifteen hours. Spread the grain for the sparrows late at night or before sunrise, so that they may break their fast upon it. Never mind diying the wheat. Don't grudge two or three bushels. Remember the winter is the time to tbin off sparrows. When the grain sprouts they become a nuisance, in harvest time they arc a plague, and at that season there is no effectual means known for diminishing their number.
Offer them the foregoing preparation in all April, May, and June, if you desire to curtail their destructiveness on young grain and ripe corn ; and we shall be glad to learn the result of your experience.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TH18810725.2.17
Bibliographic details
Taranaki Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3794, 25 July 1881, Page 2
Word Count
238TO POISON SPARROWS. Taranaki Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3794, 25 July 1881, Page 2
Using This Item
No known copyright (New Zealand)
To the best of the National Library of New Zealand’s knowledge, under New Zealand law, there is no copyright in this item in New Zealand.
You can copy this item, share it, and post it on a blog or website. It can be modified, remixed and built upon. It can be used commercially. If reproducing this item, it is helpful to include the source.
For further information please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in