Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1888 — How to Battle with the Moths. [ARTICLE]

How to Battle with the Moths.

“Well,” said a careless young person resignedly as she looked at her ottertrinmied suit, “I suppose the moths will play the mischief with all my winter things before next season. ” “What makes you think that?” demanded the good housekeeper. “They always do,” replied the careless young person in tones that indicated that she felt a certain sad pride in being singled out by fate as a victim. “That is nonsense, perfect nonsense,” said the good housekeeper in most unsympathetic tones. “If you lived in a properly regulated house you wouldn’t know what a moth looks like. I never saw them in my house. How do I keep them out ? By simply not giviug them anything to live in or on. I don’t make nests of woolen rags around on purpose for their accommodation. I don’t liavo anything woolen around in summer except things iu daily use. 1 take up the carpets of the rooms not in use or sometimes I put down matting all' over the house and put away the carpets, or if they are down I keep some good moth powder and put it around in' less frequented corners. “How do I keep them out of tho carpets after they are taken up ? “I don’t know how I’d’get them inj unless I took particular pains to. There is no sense in the world in any one hav J ing anything moth-eaten. There are 1 forty ways of preventing it, each easier than the last. To liegin with, you can! have a cedar chest or a closet if you live in yonr own house. Itt costs something in the beginning, but nothing so oppressive as people generally imagine, and there it is for the accommodation of your children’s children.”

“I’m afraid they’ll never arrive to get' the good of my cedar chests, ” interrupted the young person perttv. “Ifyou haven’t a chest,” went on the good housekeeper, ignoring this side issue, “you can put them in an ordinary trunk and put in ten cents’ worth of camphor and defy all the moths int Christendom.”

“I don’t like my things smelling of camphor, ” objected the young person. “I like my things smelling of camphor better than having no things to smell of anything,” was the satirical response, “but you don’t need to have 1 camphor. If you’ll just do up your fur® and winter woolens in cotton cloth, wrap them all up in one big sheet, and you’ll be perfectly safe—or you would be if you had some one with a grain of common sense to do them up for y<nC It won’t do to roll a sheet around the l middle and leave it open at both ends. The sheet must thoroughly enwrap your things -yith no loose corners or cracks. Moths won’t go through cotton, and if they have no other way to get at^your sealskin they’ll go without it. ” “I haven’t any sheet,” objected the young person, mischievously. She wanted to exhaust the resources as well as the patience of the good housekeeper ; but that lady was equal to the occasion. “Very well,” said she, “paper will dot just as well. If you’ll „save the big! sheets of wrapping paper that your new spring things are now coming home in you can do up all your winter ones in a way that will baffle the most enterprising moth that ever wiggled.” “But I think they have already gotten in this jacket.” “They haven’t gone far if they have; all you need to do is to shake and beat, it out well and then sprinkle it welf with powder before you put it away.' The moth powders are very generally, good things.” “But they are poisonous, aren’t they?” “As harmless as arrowroot. They don’t poison the moths, they suffocate them.” And the young person saw no way out of being obliged to take care of her things for once.