122 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 



This implies that the damage done is largely 

 the result of neglect on the farmer's part. 



The gopher as a soil-maker. In view of 

 this record of harmfulness (due, of course, 

 simply to mankind trying to modify nature for 

 his own ends in the path of the animal's natural 

 way of living, so that from nature's point of 

 view the cultivator is the aggressor and the 

 gopher merely defending himself and living off 

 the enemy), it is only fair to point out how the 

 animal, throughout the history of the species, 

 has been laying the present farmer and ranch- 

 man under his debt. 



"For unknown ages," declares Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam, in the monograph already referred 

 to, "the gophers have been steadily at work 

 plowing the ground, covering deeper and 

 deeper the vegetable matter, loosening the soil, 

 draining the land, and slowly but surely cul- 

 tivating and enriching it." 



Ernest Thompson Seton illustrates this 

 statement very forcibly by the example of 

 Manitoba, one of the richest soil-areas in the 

 world where, as elsewhere in northwestern 



