DAMAGE TO CROPS. t>3 



'\^lien mice are abundant during the growing season, the quantity 

 of grass they destroy is great, more being cut down and left upon 

 the ground than is actually consumed. In winter hay in stacks is 

 injured by field mice, and instances are known in which large stacks 

 were so badly damaged that in the spring little or no salable hay 

 remained. 



DAMAOK TO GRAINS AND FORAGE. 



Growing grains — wheat, oats, barley, rye, and buckwheat — are 

 destroyed by field mice. Attacks begin with the sprouting grain, 

 and, in the case of fall sown wheat and rye, continue during the 

 entire winter. However, when only the blades of the plants are eaten 

 this winter consmnption has but little effect upon the amount of 

 grain subsequently harvested. Much greater damage is done when 

 the grain is nearly mature, as stalks are then cut down. After the 

 grain ripens, devastation by mice continues until after harvest, when 

 the animals attack the shocked grain and even the stacks. The total 

 amount of injury by mice depends both on the number of the animals 

 present and on the length of time the grain is left in shocks. In 

 these artificial shelters mice are perfectly at home -and multiply with 

 great rapidity, so that within a feAV weeks a pair and their progeny 

 may totally ruin an entire shock of wheat or oats. 



As nearly all farmers know, field mice destro}' corn, Kafir corn, 

 and cane, whether stored in shock or in pile. The annual destruction 

 both of grain and of forage throughout the coimtry is enormous, 

 although accurate statistics of losses are not available. Of course, 

 not all the injury is done by short-tailed field mJce. W^iite- footed 

 mice {PevoTnyfiCMs)^ pocket mice {Perognathus) , harvest mice {Re'ttli- 

 rodontomys) , and ordinary house mice {Mus muscidus) also are con- 

 cerned in the damage. Throughout the country the brown rat {Mus 

 'iioi'iu'f/irvs) and in the Southwest the cotton rat (Sk/'modon) are 

 serious field pests. The several kinds of field mice, however, partly 

 because of their wide distribution, but mainly because of their great 

 abundance, are the chief offenders in noi-thern fields. 



Grain and forage in stacks are often injured by field mice. In 

 view of the losses to which stacked and stored grain is subject, it is 

 a question whether the farmer who hastens to market his crop is not, 

 on the whole, a gainer ov^er his neighbor who waits for more favor- 

 able^ ])rices. 



DAMAGE TO GARDEN CROPS. 



Field mice do much injury in market and other gardens, attacking 

 planted seeds in the open garden, hotbed, or cold frame. Pine mice 

 are the chief offenders in inclosures, sometimes working their way 

 even into gi-eenhouses, where they attack bulbs and tender growing 

 plants, as well as all kinds of seeds. 



