Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1884 — Death to Prairie Dogs. [ARTICLE]

Death to Prairie Dogs.

Some three years ago, while making a trip across the continental divide, I stopped for dinner at a roadside tavern, situated in a creek valley; close at hand was a prairie dog town, numbering over 500 inhabitants. Not long since, I had occasion to stop at the same house, and saw that the small level prairie, once occupied by prairie dogs, had been inclosed, plowed, and was then covered with a luxuriant crop of grass. Seeing no signs of the little beasts, upon asking what had become of them, I was told they had been exterminated in the following way: Balls of cotton or rags were saturated with bi-sulphide of carbon —an impure preparation will do and is cheap—pushed far down into the holes, and the holes firmly packed with earth. Bi-sulphide of carbon being an extremely volatile fluid, quickly, evaporates and forms a heavy gas, which occupies every chamber and gallery of the animal’s dwelling. This gas is as promptly fatal to animal life as the fumes of burning sulphur or carbonic acid gas. My informant also destroyed in a similar way several colonies of large ants, of the same species as those found in Texas. He built a fire close to the ant-bed, shoveled the earth forming the ant-hill into the fire, so as tq burn up the ants contained in it with their young, then scraped the surface of the ground clean, and waited a while to give the ants a chance to clear the tunnels from any earth that may have dropped into them. A ball of cotton saturated with bi-sulphide of carbon was placed in the center of the bed, covered over with a tin vessel large enough to embrace the greater number, if not all the outlets, and earth was packed about the tin, so as to exclude air. Next day the tin was removed. He showed me the sites of several beds in this yard where the ants had been killed in this manner. Since then, while in Colorado Springs, I was told this plan had been successfully used in California for a number of years; it was used for the extermination of gophers, yellow-jackets, and all other burrowing animals and insects. — Leadville letter.