The Pocket Gopher. 133 



bounty law, an act was passed authorizing county commission- 

 ers, in their discretion, to pay a premium of five to twenty-five 

 cents apiece for the scalps of pocket gophers and gray ground- 

 squirrels. The scope of this law was limited, by provision, to 

 counties east of the sixth principal meridian. Under this act 

 eight counties have paid premiums on gopher scalps for pe- 

 riods ranging from three months to four years. The list of 

 these counties follows: Atchison, Brown, Jefferson, Johnson, 

 Leavenworth, Marshall, Morris, and Pottawatomie. Some of 

 them report the payment of only a few dollars per year in 

 bounties, while in other cases the amounts are considerable. 

 Leavenworth county, for example,- paid out $2480, after which 

 the commissioners withdrew the bounty. Marshall county has 

 just withdrawn its bounty, after paying out in the year 1907 

 $4200. Township trustees from all parts of the county report 

 that the numbers of pocket gophers are apparently as great 

 in their respective townships as they were when they began 

 paying bounty a year ago. Evidently the trap is slower than 

 the gopher's rate of increase. Wholesale fraud in the matter 

 of manufacturing several scalps from one skin is suspected in 

 a number of cases. 



If a few farmer boys in every school district in certain 

 counties of central Kansas should become as active in the ex- 

 termination of the pocket gopher as the law perhaps contem- 

 plates, those counties would soon be stamping their warrants 

 "Not paid for lack of funds." By way of supporting this state- 

 ment, let me cite two illustrations : Benton county, Iowa, paid 

 out in three years $18,000 in bounty on gophers, at an average 

 rate of fourteen cents per scalp. Meeker county, Minnesota, 

 withdrew its bounty on pocket and striped gophers, or ground- 

 squirrels, after having cashed bounty warrants to the amount 

 of $14,056 in five months. 



If the destruction of the pests is to be paid for out of the 

 public treasury, better results can be obtained, and at a much 

 less cost, by the plan of distributing a prepared poison free to 

 those landowners who will agree to use it as directed. Coun- 

 ties that have tried this plan in other states prefer it to the 

 bounty system. Why may we not profit also by our own ex- 

 perience in ridding western Kansas of the prairie-dog? Under 

 the provisions of an act passed by the legislature of Kansas 

 in 1903 the purchase and use of poison in all townships in- 



