Rat control

During the past few years the rat population in Iowa has built up until it is now estimated that there are more than 5 million rats in the state. This rapid increase in population is due primarily to the tremendous volume of corn which is stored in temporary, hastily-constructed cribs that offer easy access to rats and furnish both food and shelter for them.

To meet this situation, it is urged that rat control be made an integral part of good farm practice. Since rats move about from farm to farm, especially when they are disturbed by a vigorous control campaign on the part of a few farmers, community cooperation is desired.

Rats menace not only our food and our farm animals; from the standpoint of health they threaten both humans and domestic animals, since they may act as reservoirs of infectious jaundice, endemic typhus and bubonic plague in man and trichinosis of hogs.