The Farm. (Extracts from New Zealand Farmer, Bee, and Poultry Journal.) Rat Proof Storing Sheds,

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 196, 26 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Farm. (Extracts from New Zealand Farmer, Bee, and Poultry Journal.) Rat Proof Storing Sheds,

In many parts of New Zealand rats are a terrible plague to the farmer. In the dwelling house and in the yard, in the out houses and in the fields, even in the orchard and up the fruit trees, anywhere and everywhere, they are to be found com mitting depredations upon almost every concoivable thing a settlor has about the place. Grain stored for future use or sale, either threshed and bagged or in the stack, suffers especially fiom the ravages of rats, which often are sufficiently numerous to Cause serious loss to a fanner. It is therefore absolutely neoessary to take every available means of protecting himself against their attacks. Of course every ©Sort should be made to destroy as many as possible of the vermin by trapping, and the use of good terriers and cats, and also by poison ; but in certain circumstances the laying about of poison becomes dangerous to the domestic animals of the homestead. We have more than once lost valuable birds in our poultry yard from their having eaten poisoned bread which the rats had dragged from their holes where it had been placed, and left lying about the fowl house or yard. In our last issue we described an invention recently patented in Auckland for catching rats which is worthy the attention of those pestered with such vermin. But however successful you may be in destroying rats, we should advise every settler to store anything that rats will damage in rat- proof buildings such as represented in this page. The idea of

building such storing sheds on long post is not at all a new one, but it is a good plan which is not followed often enough on colonial homesteads. An inver tiihinjan must be placed on the top of each post. The number of po3ts will of course depend upon the size of the shed. The nut shows a convenient and Biraple baethod of having steps to the building which shall not furnish rats with a means of access to what is stored within. You might, it is true, have movable steps, but these are cumbersome things to shift about, and after a while the steps get left against the doorway when some one is in a hurry, or tired, or lazy, and there they remain and the rats and mice soon find them out and make thoir way into the shed. The steps should be hung on strong hinges just at the edge of the threshold. A small rope passes from the staple up over a pulley at the top of the duor post, and reaches nearly to the floor with a weight attached just heavy enough to balance the steps at any angle Now to enter the store room you have only to open the door, and taking hold of the s^eps with a slight pull turn them down until they rest on a block set in the ground, to form the first steps. To turn them up it is only necessary to give them an upward start with your hand and the weight carries them up to their former position. There will be no flamming either way if the weight just balances the steps. When they are down a cart can easily be backed over them against the building to bo loaded or unloaded. A shed and steps of this kind has been tried for more than 15 years by a correspondent, and the steps have never got out of order and the rats have never got in.