No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 177 



plaint of robins, catbirds and others destroying fruit, tills has been 

 caused by tlie failure of tlie fruit growers to provide natural food 

 for these birds. Loss from this source can be avoided, if this 

 be done, and the birds can thus be retained. The way to meet this 

 loss is by planting, along the roadside or fences, a few of such 

 trees as service or shad-berry, mulberry, elder, wild cherry, sweet 

 cherry, hawthorn, etc. We have published in our Quarterly and 

 Monthly Bulletins upon this subject. There has been considerable 

 slaughter of the raptorial birds, or hawks and owls, with the re- 

 sult that injurious rodents are increasing, and the consequent loss 

 to farmers and orchardists is becoming greater. The next State 

 Legislature should make provisions for the stringent protection of 

 sparrow hawks and all owls excepting the great horned owi. 



The winter has been one of most extreme severity upon quail, 

 and these beneficial game birds have been exterminated throughout 

 entire counties in our State by the prolonged snow and severe 

 weather. It is possible to preserve them by taking proper pre- 

 cautions, and this is better than to attempt to import them in 

 numbers from other States. The methods of saving them have been 

 published in the Bulletins of this Division. 



(5.) MAMMALS: 



During the year there has been unusual complaint of destruc- 

 tion to farm crops and fruit trees by rodents. In some parts 

 of the State, especially in the Susquehanna valley, rabbits have 

 been particularly destructive to cabbage, while during the winter 

 they have gnawed the bark from many fruit trees, and have thus 

 wrought much damage. 



The Meadow Vole, or Pennsylvania meadow mouse {Microtus 

 pennsylvmiicus) ^ has destroyed thousands of fruit trees in this State 

 by completely girdling them beneath the snow, and other species of 

 mice have also had a part in this destruction. Trees that were 

 banded with tar, thinned with linseed oil, were not attacked until 

 the middle of January and then the pangs of hunger became so 

 great that these were also injured. We know of one orchard where 

 all the trees were killed late in the winter, although the above 

 treatment had been given. These injurious animals should be 

 poisoned by arsenic, paris green or strychnine. If the snow be 

 kept packed around the trees, the mice will not come out on top of 

 it to eat. The preservation of the hawks and owls is the only 

 means of effectually suppressing such pests. 



While there has been some destruction to the young and eggs 



of game birds by the skunk, it has undoubtedly done much more 



good than harm in the agricultural regions by destroying injurious 



insects. In the game preservations the skunks, wild cats, minks 



12—6—1903 



