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Carpet-moth — Part 2
Images coming soon.
The storage of furs and woolen garments during the summer months is an important matter. The one thing to be perfectly ascertained before placing garments in storage is that they are thoroughly disinfected and that not a single female moth capable of depositing fertile eggs is present. This fact being known with certainty, all that it is necessary to do is to place the garments in clean air-tight receptacles and close them up so that nothing can get into them. Garments may be put into perfectly tight paper bags with all openings pasted shut with a piece of tough paper. The boxes in which tailors send home garments are good storage receptacles, provided the garments are free from pests when put into them and provided every opening in the box is pasted shut with a piece of paper. It is not an altogether unwise precaution to put in "moth-balls" or crystals of naphthaline or bits of camphor, but it must be borne in mind that neither naphthaline nor camphor will kill the larvae of moths that have once found access to the garments upon which they are in the habit of feeding. A great deal of money has been uselessly expended upon such substances, when all that is necessary is simply to insure the exclusion of the pests.
The annual loss occasioned by these minute yet most annoying insects is vast, and it is not unreasonable to say that their mischievous depredations coast the citizens of the United States annually a sum of money which is enough in amount at the present time to pay the interest upon the national debt.