216 THE APPLE CULTURIST. . 



around each tree, securing it with small twine, and after- 

 wards smearing the outside with a coat of coal-tar or pitch. 

 If the tar were applied to the bark of the trees, no animal 

 would gnaw the bark. But coal-tar is so poisonous to trees 

 and plants that, unless the bark is very thick, it will soon 

 destroy all the vitality of the bark. Two thicknesses of 

 coarse brown paper will absorb a heavy coat of tar, so that 

 none of it will reach the bark, nor adhere to any thing that 

 might come in contact with it. Paper tarred after it has 

 been put around trees will secure the bark from being 

 gnawed off by goats, sheep, rabbits, and all other animals. 

 As soon as the growing season has commenced, the tarred 

 paper may be removed, although there is no danger that it 

 will injure a growing tree were it kept around it during 

 the summer. This manner of protecting trees from almost 

 every foe will not cost over two to four cents per tree. 



Meadow Mice. There are several species of this kind of mice, some of which are 

 found in almost every State in the Union. We shall notice only the Prairie-mead- 

 ow Mouse (Fig. 82, p. 217), the Wood-meadow Mouse (Fig. 83, p. 218), and the 

 Long-haired Meadow Mouse (Fig. 84, p. 219), the female, and (Fig. 85, p. 220) 

 the male. Where several species are found in one locality, they are common- 

 ly considered by farmers as one animal, known under various names, as Short- 

 tailed Field Rats or Mice, Bear Mice, Bnll-headed Mice, Ground Mice, Bog Mice, 

 etc., while many persons call them moles, though they are not in the least related 

 to that family. The food and general habits of the different species are much 

 alike, though some prefer high and others wet ground ; while others inhabit the 

 woods, prairies, etc. All the species burrow, and none climb trees. Their com- 

 mon food is the grasses and other herbaceous plants, their seeds and roots, and 

 the seeds and acorns, as well as the bark of trees, in the woods, with grain and 

 vegetables, when inhabiting cultivated fields. Some kinds, at least, lay up stores 

 of food for winter. All are active at this time, moving about in the coldest weath- 

 er, and never hibernate like marmots. One characteristic, certainly, possessed by 

 all the species in common, is their ability to destroy the products of the farm. In 

 a nursery, where apple-seeds were planted in autumn, I have observed that, during 

 fall and spring, so many of the seeds were dug up by these mice as to leave long 

 gaps in the rows of seedlings, the empty shells of the seeds being found lying 

 about the rows from which they had been taken. They congregate in stacks of 

 grain and hay, sometimes in exceedingly great numbers, destroying all the lower 

 parts, by cutting galleries through them in every direction. 



The greatest mischief done by meadow mice is the gnawing of bark from 

 fruit-trees. The complaints are constant and grievous, throughout the Northern 

 States, of the destruction of orchard and nursery-trees by the various species of 

 arvicolse. The entire damage done by them in this way may be estimated, per- 

 haps, at millions of dollars. This is especially the case at the West, where 



