The Times

to fall through the floor, and some houses which have toppled in earthquakes were believed to have been weakened by them first. The householder's war on them naturally begins with proper building protection. Beyond that, there are effective new chemicals which are now available. Some of them are water-soluble rather than oil-based and therefore less expensive and less injurious to plant life. An ingenious and dramatic device for locating termites by listening to them at work was invented about three years ago by a Dr. Craig, a California scientist, and approved by the California State Department of Agriculture. By sticking a needle into the wood, amplifying the sound and picking it up by earphones, the chewing noise of the workers munching away unseen is magnified until it comes through like a mastiff crunching a hambone. Dr. Craig's amplifier proves particularly useful for locating termites at work in sills and rafters. RECOMMENDED methods of attack will vary from one exterminator to another. The most generally approved all-out method, however, is to poison the soil in a ring around the house, either by trenching or "rodding." If the trouble can be isolated, a smaller, localized job may do the trick. The poisoning takes its effect on the colony underground and also ultimately reaches the workers, eating away at the end of the long tubes, because of their constant contact and habit of grooming each other. Prices for an exterminator job may run anywhere from $100 or $200 to more than $500. A survey taken in a Middle-Western state several years ago showed an average cost of $147 for 10,000 jobs. Exterminators often recommend poisoning the wood, too, for this reason: while termites are eager guests, they are also hospitable hosts to other members of the insect world. So great is their engineering skill that they create a happy home into which others may wish to move—the destructive powder beetle, for instance, and the black ant, the centipede, and the spider. By and large, professional exterminators, who are to be found today in almost any community, are best equipped to deal with the problem. For information one can always write to the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or to your state agricultural department. If you have any reason to be suspicious, don't close your mind to termites. Close your home instead. SUBURBIA TODAY

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