SMALL BIRDS' PEST.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1390, 31 May 1881, Page 3

SMALL BIRDS' PEST.

A farmer residing at Saddle Hill, near Dunedin, says that he has successfully coped with the nuisance' by administering wlieat poisoned ad 1 " follows : — Dissolve a lady's thimbleful of strychine in a Bmall portion of spirits of salts, mixed with 10 lb of wheat, and sown over the fields ; by this means he has reduced flocks of thousunds to a few straggling birds. Unfortunately the poisoned grain is equally destructive to valuable birds, but at present there seems, no.thing else for it but indiscriminate slaughter. ' T^he following is poison mixture recommended by the Kaiapoi Farmers' Club for a bushel of wheat : — Thoroughly disolve one ounce of strychine in half' a pint iof boiling water ; next put in a small quantity ef phosphorus. Mix 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 f ully-absorb the poison. Let the wheat stay in steep, say twelve or fifteen hourß.' 'Spread the grain for the sparrows late at night or before sunrise, so that they may break their fast upon it. Never mind drying the wheat Don't grudge two or three bushels Remember, the winter is the time to thin off sparrows.