12 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
cost of feeding them on grain would be upward of 
$100,000,000 a year. To some such enormous total 
every farmer, and indeed every householder who has 
rats upon his premises, contributes a share. 
“But the actual depredations of rats are by no 
means confined to what they eat. They destroy fully 
as much grain as they consume, and they pollute and 
render unfit for human consumption a much larger 
proportion of all other food materials that they at- 
tack. In addition, the damage they do to property 
of other kinds is often as great as that done to food 
supplies. ’’ 
Destructiveness of rats in the fields. The 
rat in America is usually thought of as vermin 
in the house and barn, so that little notice is 
taken of its destructiveness in the fields which 
Europeans understand very well. Cultivated 
grains may be regarded as the favorite food. 
The animals dig the seed from the ground as 
soon as sown, eat the tender sprouts when they 
appear, and later feast upon the maturing crop. 
After harvest they attack grain in shock, stack, 
and mow, and when thrashing is over, in crib, 
granary, elevator, mill, and warehouse. In- 
dian corn seems especially to suffer from their 
depredations. They climb the stalks and strip 
the cobs of the milky kernels; and if cut corn 
