The Popularity of Poison It is natural enough, but unfortunate,
that a good many of the chemicals that are useful as disease-killers and weed- killers and even as fertilizers are poisonous ; and I fear that poisoning from such causes is increasing. The grim story of the birds, especially rooks, and of the mammals, including dogs, cats and foxes, poisoned last week in Dorset is excep- tional ; but I hear and have had ocular evidence of a rather alarming amount of indiscriminate poisoning, in which cats and foxhounds have suffered, as in the West Country they have suffered from the illegal setting of steel-toothed traps in the open. All poisons need very careful handling. There is no doubt, for instance, that one of the best of all substances for destroying weeds—though deep-rooted weeds such as dock and dandelion are not greatly harmed—is sodium chlorate ; but I see that the very wise editor of the Estate Magazine, the monthly organ of the Country Gentlemen's Association, deprecates its use on farms unless under exceptional and carefully supervised conditions. In this substance it is the sprayer himself, not other animals, that is liable to suffer should he be the least careless : " They love not poison who do poison need." In the same issue is an account of the latest discovery of saving strawberries from their worst maladies ; and fortunately the substance in this case is nothing more deleterious than hot water ! It is found that immersion of the young plants in hot water before planting is the best precursor to health.
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