2 8 4 



FUNDAMENTALS OF AGRICULTURE. 



animal until fully engorged with blood. Then she 

 lets go and drops to the ground, where she slowly and 

 clumsily crawls under a bunch of grass or leaves. 



Here she commences lay- 

 ing e gg s > very small, 

 brown and shiny, and dur- 

 ing the next eight or ten 

 days she may lay as many 

 as 1,500 or 2,000. Her 

 mission in life is then com- 

 pleted and she dies. 



/W^J~ ^ Seed Ticks. In from 



1 8 to 25 days the eggs 

 hatch into seed ticks which 

 are very tiny. They have 

 six legs and these they 



CATTLE SEED TICK. 



make use of at once. 

 They crawl up the nearest blade of grass, clear to the 

 top. Here they stay, holding on by their hind legs 

 and waving their front legs frantically in the air. 

 When an animal brushes against the blade of grass 

 the little ticks let go their hold and attach themselves 

 to the animal. Then they crawl over its body, find a 

 place that suits them and insert their beaks to get their 

 first meal of warm blood. 



Molting. The little ticks now grow so fast that 

 their skins become too small, so the skins are shed, or 

 molted, from time to time. At the first molt the tick 

 comes out with eight legs, insead of six. 



Remedies. There are two ways to free the cattle 

 of the ticks. One way is to rub the animal thoroughly 

 with some greasy substance, such as crude petroleum, 

 the other is known as the " pasture rotation method." 



Pasture Rotation Method. In summer time the 

 baby ticks cannot live more than three months after 

 they hatch from the eggs, and unless they succeed in 

 getting on a cow or similar animal before the three 

 months are up they starve to death. Therefore, if all 

 cattle are kept out of a field for more than three 



