JUNE MEETING, 1877. 91 



of the treeless and birdless Avest, and like them luive to iippeal to government 

 for aid. 



Willi tiie above facts, not fancies or surmises, before you, and the further 

 statement that nearly all our insect pests sojourn for some period of their lives 

 ]n the earth, ready to be crushed by the ever rapacious moles, I feel (|uite safe 

 in trusting my case to an intelligent and fair-minded jury as that constituted 

 by the State Tomological Society. 



Prof. Beal. — I have experimented, observed, and thought a great deal over 

 this mole question, and must say I cannot take the radical ground occupied by 

 my brother professor. I have had too many choice plants injured by this little- 

 pest to believe him altogether harmless or worthy of our careful preservation. 

 And again I am satisfied that no wholesale devastation would follow an entire- 

 extermination of the mole. We must remember that the mole does not dis- 

 tinguish between injurious and beneficial insects, so that while he is prowling 

 about rooting up our bulbs, undermining our choice strawberries, and stirring 

 up the lawn, we must not forget that perhaps he is also destroying large num- 

 bers of our best friends. I can see two sides to this question, and believe that 

 the moles destroy a great many insect enemies, but after weighing the matter 

 carefully, I have decided to get hold of the best trap I can find and close up' 

 the career of some of them. 



Mr. Satterlee. — I consider the mole a nuisance on the whole, and am willing 

 to cast my vote against him. I do not under-estimate his good qualities, but 

 feel that the burden of testimony in my own experience and observation is- 

 against him. 



Mr. Laiinin. — I am glad to hear this mole question discussed, and wish to> 

 add a bit of my own ex})erience. I had a piece of pretty heavy clay ground 

 ■which a few years ago I thorouglily fitted for pear trees. In its preparation I 

 employed a large amount of barnyard manure. Very soon I noticed that sev- 

 eral of my pear trees were doing poorly, almost dying. I am a man that lives 

 in my orchard, and to see these pretty trees dying touched my heart. Pre- 

 viously I had noticed that the moles were working vigorously in the soil, but to- 

 what purpose I do not know. liut after investigating I found two facts, that 

 in putting so much barnyard manure on my land I had increased, to an alarm- 

 ing extent, the angle-worms. My ground was full of them. The moles were 

 after the angle worms, and without any show of malice had perfectly under- 

 mined a number of my trees, nearly destroying them before 1 had found out 

 the cause. However they cleaned out the angle worms; by further experiment 

 I found the more manure I added, the more angle worms were bred, and the more- 

 moles tunneled the ground until I was near losing my young orchard. Mean- 

 Avhile I was by no means free from the miserable cut-worms upon this samo 

 field. I think my experience has proved several points: 



1. Moles are by no means an unalloyed good. 



2. Tiiey will work in chiy soil. 



3. They may not always choose to eat our greatest enemies in the insect line 

 when within their reach. 



I now turn my hogs into the orchard, and they do pretty good service in 

 eating angle worms, cut worms, and moles. 



Mr. Winchester. — I am satisfied that the diet of moles is not confined ta 

 things outside of vegetables. They will certainly cat tender bulbs. They do- 

 more than to destroy plants by undermining them, for they eat them. 



