ANIMAL PESTS AND DISEASES. 



The pocket gopher is a serious pest in the alfalfa 

 field. In many western states it is indeed a most 

 serious menace. In all the non-irrigated parts of 

 California the gopher cuts short the life of an al- 

 falfa field. Irrigation stops their work, but irriga- 

 tion is not always possible. T. J. Headlee of the 

 Kansas experiment station thus discusses the gopher 

 and his work in Bulletin 155 : 



No other animal attacking the underground parts of alfalfa can 

 equal or even closely approach the gopher in destructiveness. 

 While the pocket gopher occurs in all parts of the state it is most 

 abundant and destructive in the valleys of the Kansas River and 

 its main tributaries. The plains pocket gopher {Geomys lutes- 

 cens, Merr.) holds sway on the western plains, and the prairie 

 pocket gopher {Geomys iursarius, Shaw) Infests most of the re- 

 mainder of the state. These two species show such a similarity 

 in life-habits that for the consideration of methods of combating 

 a knowledge of the prairie form will serve for both. 



The prairie pocket gopher is short and stocky, showing an 

 average length of about ten inches from the tip of its nose to 

 the end of its stubby, hairless tail. Its body is covered with 

 silky dark brown hair, its eyes are small and well protected by 

 fur, and its ears are so short as hardly to cause a ripple in the 

 smooth-lying fur of the head. Its front feet are furnished with 

 long, strong claws and otherwise modified for digging. In fact, 

 the whole structure of the animal fits it for its subterranean 

 existence. 



The gopher tunnels hither and thither in search of food, at 

 intervals digging short lateral burrows to the surface through 

 which it pushes the excavated earth and dumps it outside, thus 

 forming the mounds that indicate its presence and mark its pro- 

 gress. These animals are most active during the fall and spring, 

 and one individual may throw up several mounds daily for sev- 

 eral weeks at a time. During these seasons the work of a few 

 gophers in an alfalfa-fleld may cause the uninitiated to suppose 



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