Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1912 — A Plague of Rats Afflicts Winnipeg [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Plague of Rats Afflicts Winnipeg

•WINNIPEG, Man.—The brown rat >W has reached Winnipeg. According |to the statistics of the department of agriculture of the province there is «n area of 90 miles long abutting the . United States on its northern frontier and 60 miles wide in which the rats have made their appearance. . Mr. Golden, the deputy minister, es'timates that the damage done this year by the brown rat is $1,000,000, and it will proportionately increase unless the people generally awaken to the seriousness of the situation. According to the deputy minister, the rats in the province move in a radius of 15 miles each year, and he' has compiled many valuable statistics relating tc the rat Two years ago lhe department conducted a series of investigations and produced virus that it was thought would eliminate -the pest. There was quite a considerable amount Interest at first, and many applications were made for the virus. Reports indicate that thousands of rats were destroyed by its use, but that public Interest lagged after a while, and no systematic method-now

seems to be followed by the farmers. Minister Golden conducted some interesting experiments at Gretna, a town a-few miles from the frontier of the United states last year, to deter* mine the amount of food the rat would Consume a day, and at the Same time to test the virus. The rats were caught and one of them received an injection of the virus. Within two days it died, and the other rat, not having" been provided with food, proceeded to devpur its dead comrade. Within 24 hodrs it had consumed all of the dead rat with the exception of half an inch of the tail, and it stfbcumbed within a few hours to the poison which had been injected into the other rat. --