350 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Destroying Mice and Rabbits. 



C. E. SNYDER, PRESTON. 



In this country mice and rabbits destroy more apple trees 

 than all other causes combined. We have tried every method that 

 we ever heard about or read of to protect the orchard from these 

 pests. Wrapped with paper, wood veneer, screen wire, hilling 

 with dirt, tramping the snow, etc., but in spite of all this every 

 now and then a tree would be girdled worth anywhere from 

 $10.00 to $50.00. So we concluded the only way to do was to kill 

 off the pest. We tried poison of all kinds in different ways, 

 strychnine and arsenic in all kinds of meal put in tin cans and 

 laid on their side in corn shocks, under hay or piles of rubbish. 

 Of course this gets some of them but not all by any means. 



We find the best way to get all the mice is to get a half bushel 

 of those little wood mouse traps. Can get them at any hardware 

 store for about a penny apiece. Put ten or so of them in corn 

 shocks in and about the orchards and have them baited with 

 strong cheese. Get a careful boy or man to look at them twice a 

 day, and he will find them full of mice for the first few days. 

 Then they begin to get scarcer, but they will keep coming until 

 you get every single one on the premises. The same bait will last 

 for a good many days as they hardly get their teeth in it before 

 they are caught. We have caught the traps full when there were 

 cans of poison in the same shocks. Keep the traps set even after 

 you think they are all gone, as some may run in from the groves 

 or other fields. 



The way to get all the rabbits is to go after them with a fer- 

 ret. It takes three or four to do it right, as you must catch them 

 as they come out of their holes or shoot them as they run, and we 

 frequently find five or six rabbits in one set of holes. Go in the 

 fall after it freezes up and then again after the first snow. Go 

 over the ground thoroughly. After that you will find only few 

 that run in from the neighboring groves or hills. Go after them 

 again. It is great sport, and in a couple or three times you will 

 have all the cottontails. 



No Vine Crops in Small Plots. — It does not pay to grow the vine 

 crops in very small gardens unless they can be trained on trellises at the 

 side of the garden or planted on the area which has matured an early crop 

 like lettuce, early peas, spinach, or radishes. 



The vine crops are all warm season crops and cannot be planted in the 

 field usually before June 1st. The growing season is so short that only the 

 earlier varieties of muskmelons and watermelons can be matured from seed 

 started outdoors. Cucumbers and squash usually mature if started the first 

 week in June, but even they should be started in the hot-bed if an early 

 product and a large yield are desired. — "Wis. Horticulture." 



