DAMAGE TO GRAINS. 19 



grain as they consume, and they pollute and render unfit for human 

 consumption a much larger proportion of all other food materials 

 that they attack. In addition, the damage they do to property of 

 other kinds is often as great as that done to food supplies. 



DAMAGE BY RATS. 



But few attempts have been made to collect statistics of damage 

 done by noxious animals in America. The reported items of loss 

 are so scattered and fragmentary that no accurate estimate of their 

 amount is possible. In some parts of Europe, where agricultural 

 holdings are small and minute economies prevail, such statistics are 

 sometimes collected. Thus in Kussia returns of the losses from 

 predatory Carnivora in the various provinces are published annually. 



A few estimates of the amount of losses from rats in foreign coun- 

 tries have been published. In Denmark they have been reported 

 as amounting to 15,000,000 francs ($3,000,000) yearly. a In France 

 in 1904 the total losses from rats and mice were estimated at 

 200,000,000 francs (nearly $40,000,000). b The German Ministry 

 of Agriculture, in a circular addressed to various subordinate cham- 

 bers of agriculture, states that the people of Germany suffer an annual 

 loss through the agency of the rat of at least 200,000,000 marks 

 ($50,000,000). Sir James Crichton-Browne, of the English Incor- 

 porated Society for the Destruction of Vermin, says that the damage 

 done by the rat in Great Britain and Ireland ''in its rural activities, 

 to say nothing of what it does in towns and in connection with ship- 

 ping, is £15,000,000 (about $73,000,000) per annum." c 



The principal ways in which rats inflict losses in the United States 

 are discussed under the various subheadings below. 



GEAINS. 



Cultivated grains may be regarded as the favorite food of rats. 

 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. The toll thus taken varies with the numbers of the 

 rodents, and in some places amounts to a considerable percentage 

 of the crop. In exceptional cases entire crops have been ruined 

 by rats. 



Indian corn. — On the whole this crop suffers greater injury from 

 rats than any other in the United States. Besides depredations on 

 newly sown seed, the animals attack the growing grain when in the 



a Dr. Adrian Loir in Jour. d'Agri. Tropicale, vol. 3, p. 369, December 31, 1903. 

 kJour. Board of Agri., Great Britain, vol. 2, p. 50, 1904. 

 cjour. Inc. Soc. Dest. Vermin, vol. 1, p. 74, October, 1908. 



