DAMAGE TO CROPS. 23' 



When mice are abundant during the growing season, the quantity 

 of grass they destroy is great, more being cut down and left upon 

 the ground than is actually consumed. In winter hay in stacks is 

 injured by field mice, and instances are known in which Batge stacks 

 were so badly damaged that in the spring little or no sal-able hay 

 remained. 



DAMAGE TO GRAINS AND FORAGE. 



Growing grains — wheat, oats, barley, rye. and buckwheat — are 

 destroyed by field mice. Attacks begin with the sprouting grain, 

 and. in the case of fall sown wheat and rye, continue during the 

 entire winter. However, when only the blades of the plants are eaten 

 this winter consumption has but little effect upon the amount of 

 grain subsequently harvested. Much greater damage is done when 

 the grain is nearly mature, as stalks are then cut down. After the 

 grain ripens, devastation by mice continues until after harvest, when 

 the animals attack the shocked grain and even the stacks. The total 

 amount of injury by mice depends both on the number of the animals 

 present and on the length of time the grain is left in shocks. In 

 these artificial shelters mice are perfectly at home and multiply with 

 great rapidity, so that within a few weeks a pair and their progeny 

 may totally ruin an entire shock of wheat or oats. 



As nearly all farmers know, field mice destroy corn, Kafir corn, 

 and cane, whether stored in shock or in pile. The annual destruction 

 both of grain and of forage throughout the country is enormous, 

 although accurate statistics of losses are not available. Of course, 

 not all the injury is done by short-tailed field mice. White- footed 

 mice (Peromyscus) , pocket mice (Perognathus) , harvest mice (Reith- 

 rodontomys), and ordinary house mice (Mus musculus) also are con- 

 cerned in the damage. Throughout the country the brown rat (Mus 

 norvegicus) and in the Southwest the cotton rat (Sigmodon) are 

 serious field pests. The several kinds of field mice, however, partly 

 because of their Avide distribution, but mainly because of their great 

 abundance, are the chief offenders in northern fields. 



Grain and forage in stacks are often injured by field mice. In 

 view of the losses to Arhich stacked and stored grain is subject, it is 

 a question whether the farmer who hastens to market his crop is not, 

 on the whole, a gainer over his neighbor who waits for more favor- 

 able prices. 



DAMAGE TO GARDEN CROPS. 



Field mice do much injury in market and other gardens, attacking 

 planted seeds in the open garden, hotbed, or cold frame. Pine mice 

 are the chief offenders in inclosures, sometimes working their way 

 even into greenhouses, where they attack bulbs and tender growing- 

 plants, as well as all kinds of seeds. 



