HOW TO DESTROY MOTHS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue IV, 27 July 1895, Page 101

HOW TO DESTROY MOTHS.

Close all the windows and all doors leading from the room about to undergo treatment, open wide each drawer and closet, and hang the contents over chairs or upon a clothes-horse brought into the room for the occasion. Take apiece of gum camphor as large as a hazel-nut for an ordinary room (as large as a walnut for a room 20 by 16) put it in an iron pot and place the latter within another iron pot or upon an iron stand. Set fire to the camphor. It burns very fiercely, so set it at a safe distance from furniture or hangings; the middle of the room is the best place for it, unless this be directly under a chandelier, in which case it can be placed more towards the side, as the heat is apt to injure the gilding or bronze. The dense smoke soon permeates every nook and corner and suffocates every insect that inhales it. Canary birds or goldfish are to be carried from the room before beginning operations, and as soon as the camphor begins to burn the operator may leave the room, as provided she has taken the above precautions, there will he no danger of the fire spreading. The camphor will burn from a quarter to half an hour, but it can be extinguished at any moment by placing over it a stove lid or the cover of the pot. Let the smoke remain in the room about half-an-hour, then open the windows wide, leaving them so all day. After a few hours’ airing, the traces of smoke will be scarcely noticeable. All the rooms can be treated thus in succession or all at once, care being taken to guard against fire.