Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1887 — Toads. [ARTICLE]

Toads.

In most districts of‘Great Britain toads are moderately numerous—more numerous, indeed, than might be imagined, for they are not animals that court publicity. In the face of this it is rather surprising to hear that toads are now being imported into this country from Austria. They are packed in wooden boxes filled with moss, and on their arrival fetch as much as from sls to S2O per 100. Toads have long been an article of commerce here; in most well-ordered gardens the visitor will occasionally be startled by a quaint apparition on the pathway, puffing like an asthmatic old gentleman, and the suburban market-gardeners and nurserymen very frequently have them in their frames and greenhouses and about their grounds. But until recently our horticulturists have been satisfied with the exertions of the native toads in ridding them of slugs, grubs, and noxious insects. It is possible that the Austrian toad may be larger and more voracious than ours, and this may explain the fact of its importation. At present it does not seem to have put in an appearance at Covent Garden, where a stock of toads and green frogs is usually kept. At any rate the new visitant, if only as useful as the native animal, deserves a hearty welcome as a cheap and useful ally of the gardener, for not only does the toad live to an extreme old age but it has the unusual merit of finding its own provender and lodging. And beyond this, it has much more good-nature in it than its forbidding exterior would seem to indicate, and has frequently become so tame as to come at a call or even at the sound of a whistle. London Globe.