Man and Nature 



397 



and indeed every householder who lias rats upon liis prem- 

 ises, contributed a share.''' 



"(Corn) sufit'ers <ireater injury Iroiii rats than any other 

 crop in the TTnited States. Besides depredations on newly sown 

 seed, the animals attack the grrowino; jyrain when in the milk 

 stage. They cliinb the upright stalks and often strip the 

 cobs clean of grain. The writer has seen whole fields of corn 

 so destroyed and in many cases has observed parts of fields 

 amounting to several acres practically ruined. A writer in 

 the "American Agriculturist" reported an instance in which 



> ■•^^* '^ 



The Cottontail EABurr in its Form 



From Lantz, ' ' Cottontail Rabbits in Eolation to Trees and Farm 

 Crops," Farmers' Bulletin, No. 702. 



Courtesy of the U. S. Burvmi of Biolof/icul Kuririj. 



rats destroyed three-fourths of the com on 13 acres of land. 

 In 1905 a large portion of the crop grown on the I'otomac flats 

 near Washington was destroyed by rats. . . . A farmer liv- 

 ing near Grand River, Iowa, relates the following experience: 



" 'We had about 2,000 bushels of corn in 3 cribs to which 

 rats ran, and they ate and destroyed about one-fourth of the 

 corn. IMuch of it was too dirty to put tliruugli the grinder 

 until it had been cleaned an ear at a time. All the time we 

 were poisoning and trapping the rats. We killed as high as 

 300 rats in two days and could liardly miss them. They de- 



^At the present time these figures would be considerably greater. 



