116 Kansas Academy of Science. 



attention was paid to the prairie-dog, except to note that the num- 

 bers of the little animal were steadily increasing with the advent 

 of the settler. This increase was due to man's interference in 

 nature's balance of power by destroying the natural enemies of the 

 prairie-dog, and to the cultivation of crops, which furnished addi- 

 tional food supplies for the herbivorous wild animals. When, 

 however, the lands began to be t^ken up by sections and quarters 

 for grazing, dry farming and irrigation purposes, it soon became 

 evident that the prairie-dog was in the way — that his village dis- 

 figured the fair face of the plains, and that his kind cropped the 

 grass so closely as to leave nothing for the cattle. The first occu- 

 pation of western Kansas by settlers in the middle eighties lasted 

 such a brief time that before the prairie-dogs had become accus- 

 tomed to the proximity of sod shanties and to the neatly turned 

 furrows made by the breaking plow, these same shanties began to 

 crumble from neglect, and dwarf sunflowers were bending before 

 the wind where the erstwhile claim-holder had pictured fields of 

 waving grain. 



When, in the beginning of the present decade, the West began 

 to fill up again with settlers, the latter were not long in taking 

 stock of the country's resources, and the prairie-dog was reckoned 

 — well, not among the assets. By careful investigation and com- 

 putations it was found that 250 of these little animals will eat about 

 as much as one steer, and that on their extensive village sites they 

 were drawing upon the land for from fifty to seventy-five per cent 

 of its producing capacity. Moreover, in the interim between the 

 first and the second influx of immigration the prairie-dog had 

 steadily increased in numbers to such an extent that some of the 

 few remaining settlers along the infested territory on the Smoky 

 were literally forced to leave the country with their cattle. It is 

 said that the post office at Elkader was abandoned for this reason 



no patrons. From general apathy regarding the prairie-dog, the 



settlers awoke to the knowledge that he was a terrible nuisance — 

 a menace to the industries of the country. Something must be 

 done. The legislature was importuned for aid at the session of 

 1901. One Steve Cave, of Haskell county, introduced a bill aimed 

 at the destruction of the pest, and the war was on, 



It may be said that the campaign, though not brief, was de- 

 cisive. After the jDassage of the bill the conduct of matters experi- 

 mental and aggressive was given in charge of a special field agent 

 appointed by the regents of the State Agricultural College. Circu- 

 lar letters of inquiry were at once sent out to the officers of the 



