DAMAGE TO RICE. 21 



The permanency of the rat's stay in any place is merely a question 

 of food supply. As long as cribs and stables furnish plenty, rats 

 remain in them, but in summer the harvest held and the wheat stacks 

 prove equally if not more attractive, and rats roam far afield. 



The small grain crops — wheat, rye, barley, oats, and the like^- 

 during growth and until they leave the farmer's hands are con- 

 stantly dwindling in quantity through inroads made upon them 

 by rats, and these animals continue to prey upon them at every 

 stage of their progress from the field to the consumer. Rats take 

 toll not only from the portion set apart for human food, but even 

 from feed box and manger, as well as from hog trough and out- 

 door field lot. Bran and chopped grains are as acceptable to rats 

 as whole grain. 



The destruction of feedstuffs by rats is a serious loss not only on 

 the farm but in almost every city and village in the whole country. 

 Often through carelessness or the indifference of servants, the bin 

 or barrel in which feed is kept is left uncovered, and rats fairly 

 swarm to the nightly feast. In some cases investigated in Washing- 

 ton, D. C, the loss was equal to 5 or 10 percent of the grain bought. 

 A grocer was buying feed for two horses and several hundred rats; 

 the horses were fed at regular intervals, the rats nearly all the time. 

 In the cases of establishments keeping from fifty to a hundred 

 horses, the loss of feed in the course of a year often amounts to a 

 large item. 



Rats are very fond of malt, and in malt houses and breweries 

 constant watchfulness is necessary to prevent losses. Mills, elevators, 

 and warehouses in which grain and feedstuffs are stored are likewise 

 subject to invasions of the animals. Also the destruction of sacks, 

 barrels, and bins is a large item of loss. 



Rice. — Rats and mice injure rice fields in the South. The brown 

 rat burrows freely in the dikes and is usually the most destructive 

 species, although the introduced roof rat, the native rice rat (Oryzo- 

 mys), and the native cotton rat (Sigmodon) also are injurious in some 

 localities. A letter from Alfred Chisholm, of Savannah, written to 

 Doctor Merriam about twenty years ago, gives some details of the 

 abundance of rats — probably several species — in the Georgia rice 

 fields. Mr. Chisholm says: 



Rats do almost if not quite as much damage [to rice] as birds. * * * It is a 

 matter of fact that Col. John Screven had killed on his Proctor plantation (400 acres 

 of rice lands) over 17,000 rats; and on the Delta plantation (1,000 to 1,200 acres) there 

 were killed by actual count 30,000. These rats were killed during the winter and 

 spring of the same year. During the "stretch" flow, the rats will swim out into the 

 fields from their holes in the dikes and eat every grain of rice left exposed, their 

 depredations being carried on mostly at night. 



Arsenic was used to poison the rodents, some planters having 

 each purchased from 50 to 100 pounds of the poison. 



