Man and Nature 



397 



and indeed every householder who has rats upon his prem- 

 ises, contributed a share. 5 



"(Corn) suffers greater injury from rats than any other 

 crop in the United States. Besides depredations on newly sown 

 seed, the animals attack the growing grain when in the milk 

 stage. They climb 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 RABBIT IN ITS FORM 



From Lantz, ' ' Cottontail Babbits in Eelation to Trees and Farm 

 Crops," Farmers ' Bulletin, No. 702. 



Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Biological Survey. 



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

 In 1905 a large portion of the crop grown on the Potomac flats 

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

 ing near Grand Kiver, 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. Much of it was too dirty to put through 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 hardly miss them. They de- 



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



