360 Kansas State Board of Agriculture. 



some lateral or pocket tunnel renders the little striped skunk especially 

 valuable as a gopher catcher. 



In summary it may be said that we can not, except in a few favored 

 localities, depend upon the natural forces to keep in check the increase of 

 the pocket gopher. By increasing the acreage of alfalfa we are producing 

 the very conditions that are favorable to the most rapid multiplication of 

 the species; and, on the other hand, by thoughtlessly or wantonly destroy- 

 ing harmless owls, hawks, bull snakes, and certain mammals, we still 

 further interfere with nature's efforts to preserve the balance of power in 

 the animal world. The worst that can be said of the enemies of the pocket 

 gopher is that the great horned owl, the weasel and the skunk sometimes 

 destroy domestic fowls. But a little wise precaution in shutting up coops 

 at night would prevent these inroads on the poultry industry. 



Crops Damaged. 



The economic status of the pocket gopher has changed in the last few 

 decades. There was a time when their work was of real benefit to the 

 future interests of agriculture. For untold centuries they have been 

 mixing the soil of the prairies, bringing up the subsoil to mellow, and 

 covering up vegetation to molder and add humus to the clays and sand. 

 But now that the virgin soil has been prepared for us we would gladly 

 dispense with their services, for their presence is now seriously detri- 

 mental to our interests. 



ALFALFA. The damage to cultivated plants results not only from the 

 animal's eating roots or stems, but also from its habit of throwing up 

 numerous mounds of earth, which very often cover considerable areas of 

 the growing crops and obstruct the later harvesting of the remainder. 

 Indeed, it would scarcely be worth while in many instances to make such 

 vigorous warfare on the gopher if the only issue at stake was the kind 

 or quantity of food he pilfered. This is especially true in the case of 

 alfalfa. No other one of the important crops of the state has suf- 

 fered so much from the ravages of the pocket gopher as this valuable 

 plant. From a gopher's standpoint conditions of life are easy in a field 

 of alfalfa. The ground is not worked for years at a time, at least not 

 deep enough to interfere with the underground runways. Again, the 

 roots of the plant are fleshy and toothsome and penetrate deep into the 

 soil, where they may be encountered in abundance at the usual depth at 

 which the animal ranges. They are there, too, at any time of the year to 

 satisfy the appetite of the hungry rodent. As a result of these favorable 

 conditions gophers have multiplied at an alarming rate in recent years 

 wherever alfalfa is extensively grown. In the river valleys of central 

 Kansas particularly I have seen fields of thirty or forty acres in which 

 one might walk over the entire tract by stepping from one gopher mound 

 to another. It is safe to say that in these cases not less than one-fourth 

 to one-third of the actual acreage of the field was covered, and therefore 

 a total loss. Much of that which remains is necessarily weakened by 

 the loss of portions of the root system. 



Even a few gophers in an alfalfa field become an intolerable nuisance 

 by obstructing the work of mowing the crop. The man who is running 



