ANIMALS INJURIOUS TO FRUIT TREES. 465 



Hooker, of Rochester, has successfully driven them off 

 with poison. He takes a block of wood six inches long 

 and three or four square, and bores it lengthwise with 

 an inch-and-a-half auger nearly through, and places in 

 the lower end some corn-meal and arsenic. He places 

 these blocks among the trees, mouth inclined down- 

 wards, "to keep the powder dry." 



Great destruction of orchards was committed by the 

 mice in the winter of 1869-70, and since then various con- 

 trivances have been resorted to. One is to incase the lower 

 part of the tree in a thin, flexible wooden covering. Corn 

 and corn-meal mixed with poison and scattered around 

 the trees has also been employed, with more or less success. 



Moles. These are easily poisoned and driven off, by 

 putting pills of flour mixed with arsenic into their holes, 

 and shutting them up. We have seen them banished 

 by bits of dried codfish placed in the entrance of their holes. 



Cats often commit serious depredations on trees by 

 scratching the bark. Quite recently we saw a large 

 number of beautiful fruit trees nearly ruined by them. 

 A few briers secured around trees in the vicinity of the 

 house, where they frequent most, will be a sufficient 

 protection. 



Hogs. It is not generally supposed that these ani- 

 mals will attack trees ; but we have heard of a Western 

 farmer who turned in a large number of them to con- 

 sume the corn that had been grown in his young 

 orchard. When the corn began to grow scarce they at- 

 tacked the trees, and not one out of several hundred 

 but was completely girdled the bark gnawed off as far 

 up as the brutes could reach. 



Where it may be desirable to turn hogs into an or- 

 chard, unless the feed be very abundant, the trees should be 

 protected around the base with thorns, briers, or some 

 prickly brush. 



Habbits may be deterred from causing injury by rub- 

 20* 



