Arsenic
This must be used with the utmost caution, as it is a poison most fatal to animal life. Recipe: 1oz. of ordinary arsenic is placed in an old iron pot with a quart of water, and then boiled until reduced to a pint or a little more of liquid, to which is added 1/2lb. of coarse sugar. This mixture can either be dropped about the runs and around the nests, or placed in saucers in the Ants' haunts.
Ferrocyanide of Potassium. This is also very dangerous: Ferrocyanide of potassium, 1dr.; raspings of quassia, 1dr.; and enough sugar to form a syrup. Use in the same way as the preceding.
Calomel and Sugar. Mix together one part of calomel and ten parts of finely-powdered loaf sugar, and lay it in little heaps about their nests and runs; the Ants will eat it and die. Spring is the best season for this method. Guano, when fresh, if sprinkled on and around their quarters, is said to be efficacious in driving them away.
Camphor. If a piece of camphor, about the size of a filbert, be placed in two quarts of hot water, and this, when cool enough, applied to pot or other plants infested with Ants, the insects will be driven off without injury to the plants.
Bones. Lay a quantity of partially-picked boiled bones in the haunts, and they will be quickly covered with insects. As soon as this occurs, throw the bones into hot water. Before laying them down again, let all superfluous moisture drain off. This is a cheap remedy, and, if persisted in, is very effectual. Carbolic Acid. This, if of good strength, diluted with about ten or twelve times its bulk of water, and well sprinkled over paths or other places where there is no vegetation, will keep the Ants away. It has, however, an objectionable smell.
Paraffin Oil. Paraffin, mixed with six times its bulk of water, and sprinkled over the nests every few days, will kill and drive away Ants; but the smell is disagreeable.
Quassia. 4oz. of quassia chips, boiled in a gallon of water for about ten minutes, and 4oz. of soap added to the liquor as it cools, if used like the preceding, is fairly effectual; but this, like the other remedies, must be persisted in for some time.
Fly pans or saucers, nearly filled with thin honey or sweet oil, attract Ants, and they are drowned in them. Ants are very hard to clear effectually out of a place, and therefore it is very desirable, in all attempts to be rid of them, to persist in the above remedies. When not living close to the roots or stems of plants, the best and surest remedy of all is to flood them out or scald them in with boiling water. The specifics are endless, but the best are mentioned above.