32 AN ECONOMIC STUDY OF FIELD MICE. 



Mice eat celery put up in the garden. They also eat roots of grass if there 

 is a heavy snow on the ground during the winter. 



— Lewisburg. Union County, Pa., Dec. 1886. 



Mice often cause serious trouble in the winter season by girdling fruit trees, 

 especially apple and peach trees. They commit depredations on buckwheat 

 fields. —Milan, Bradford County. Pa., 1888. 



Our fields are subject to invasions of meadow mice during the winter when 

 mulch is on them. A thousand of the mice wintered 1885-86 on a 2-acre straw- 

 berry patch. They eat the bark of trees when straw is placed about them 

 or snow is on the ground. — Mexico. N. Y., 1886. 



Meadow mice injure dams, banks, drains, and embankments. 



— Gilbertville, N. Y., 1887. 



Meadow mice injure vegetables ; they are especially fond of beets. Thes' 

 injure meadows quite seriously when numerous by feeding on grass roots. They 

 were extremely numerous in 1885, and ate potatoes in the hills. 



—Little Valley. N. Y., 1887. 



In some cases I have found a shock of corn w' h half the corn consumed by 

 meadow mice. — Caldwell. N. J.. Nov. 1. 1886. 



The fields are full of mice. They are about the ears of standing corn, while 

 that on the ground is mostly eaten. This is surely an invasion of mice. I can 

 account for it only because last winter was so mild that all of them survived. 



— Fairfield, Iowa, Nov., 1889. 



Meadow mice are very destructive to the harvest fields, particularly in the 

 shocks. They bite the ears of wheat and cut the twine bands off the sheaves. 

 They gnaw young fruit trees in winter, if manure or straw is left close around 

 the stem, and they kill the trees. — Willows. Griggs County. Dak., Dec. 188€. 



Field voles eat wheat, rye, and other cereals, both green and when matured, 

 and carry green grain as well as matured kernels into their burrows. They 

 sometimes carry a half bushel of grain into a single hole. They damage fodder 

 by cutting it. —North Topeka. Kans., May. 1890. 



In the summer of 1881 we had an invasion of meadow mice [probably 21. 

 townsendi], and they did much damage. They destroyed seeds in the garden 

 and ate growing wheat and oats in the spring, sometimes nearly destroying 

 entire fields. They played havoc with the early peas and destroyed carrots 

 and parsnips in the fall. The summer was unusually wet. The next summer 

 was dry, and the mice disappeared. This is the only, mouse year we have ever 

 had here. During the year nearly all the cats died, apparently from eating the 

 mice. They caught and ate them freely and were all affected alike. Some 

 vomited more freely than others ; they got puny, refused to eat, and died. 

 Since the " mouse year " cats are themselves again. 



— Aumsville, Oreg.. Dec, 1886. 



The bob-tailed mouse is a pest here, eating all kinds of bulbs, lilies, tulips, 

 potatoes, etc. — Centerville. Mo.. 1887. 



Meadow mice ruined nearly the entire crop of clover in the winter of 1884-85. 



— YVakeman. Ohio. 1886. 



We are troubled with meadow voles. When we have much snow in winter 

 they are very plentiful the next summer. Winter thaws, which leave the fields 

 bare of snow, destroy them. They destroy fruit trees by gnawing the bark 



