MISCHIEF OF MEADOW-MOUSE _ 69 
In view of their wide distribution, the nature 
of their habits and the abundance of shelter 
and food everywhere in America, it is impos- 
sible to get rid of them; but it is not hopeless 
to reduce their ability for damage to a negligi- 
ble quaitity. Thorough and clean cultivation, 
with frequent plowing, is perhaps the most 
effective general remedy, and where this is done 
throughout a group of adjoining farms, and the 
roadside weeds and fence-tangles are regularly 
cut, or burned over, little trouble will be ex- 
perienced within the district. 
Next to this is the preservation of the birds 
and other animals which prey upon mice, and 
which have been so ruthlessly killed off in most 
rural districts, partly through the insane tend- 
ency to kill every living thing which animates 
many country boys and men, and partly 
through mistaken ideas as to the harm such an- 
imals do. Even persons who ought to know 
better engage in this miscellaneous destruction 
of the best friends a farmer can have,—proof 
of which will appear later in this book. 
‘“One of the most common mistakes made by sports- 
men in the supposed interests of -game protection,’’ 
