220 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
June, 1912 
TE CER TINET Sy 
Sue EES ETS 
Le oe Ee 
This is the curious little animal that wreaks such havoc with our lawns. 
so ake ae 
Without sight he finds his way underneath the best laid sods 
Moles and the Lawn 
By T. C. Turner 
Photographs by the author 
vq]| NE of the greatest charms of the country or 
suburban home is its lawn. Without Na- 
ture’s own carpet the best planned house in 
the world would lack in the full measure of 
attractiveness despite all the beauty that the 
cleverest architect might put into its con- 
A good lawn well kept is not one of the easiest 
Many are the troubles that 
struction. 
things for its owner to have. 
beset the ingenuity of the homemaker who strives with the 
proper up-keep of his lawn. Dandelions must be carefully 
watched and prodded out, crab grass must be subdued, and 
worms kept under control as far as possible. These and 
many other obstacles of a minor nature must be watched 
day by day if one is really to make a lawn to be proud of. 
The excellent article on ‘‘How To Make Good Lawns,” 
page 100, AMERICAN HoMEs AND GARDENS, March, 1912, 
had to do with the planting and seeding of the lawn, 
whereas the writer of the present article would call atten- 
tion to one of the greatest menaces to the stretch of green, 
the turf-destructive mole. 
Of all the plagues that beset the lawn the mole is prob- 
ably the greatest. This veritable “pestilence that walketh 
[or to be more correct one would say scrapeth] in dark- 
ness’’ makes its appearance at most inopportune moments, 
dooming every blade of grass above his miniature subway. 
In the short space of a night he will scrape a trench just be- 
low the surface, often as much as fifty yards in length, and 
leave above it the telltale ridge of earth in 
which the roots of the turf are left to die 
under the hot Summer sun. No quarter 
of the world is entirely free from the trail 
of the mole, but America is blest or cursed 
with several varieties all to herself. All 
are alike in their methods of life and their 
destructiveness of lawns and pastures. 
The common mole of the east (Scalops 
aquaticus ) is the most widely known. The 
mole prefers to do his burrowing when the 
rain has made the earth soft and brought 
his food, the worm, near to the surface. 
For so small a beast he accomplishes won- 
ders. Blind, not often more than five 
inches long and two inches in diameter, 
yet he will raise a furrow of earth to the 
Mole trap—open 
surface that will kill every blade of grass above it, for that 
season. Of course, the moles can be got rid of, but sel- 
dom can an estate be thoroughly cleared of them without 
the patience and the knowledge which a trained mole trap- 
per brings to bear in the work. The Department of Public 
Parks, New York city, has found it necessary to retain the 
services of one, whose forefathers have followed the craft 
for generations. I have the figures of one of them, that 
are surprising. Destroyed at Greenwood cemetery, Brook- 
lyn, 2,884; on the William Rockefeller estate at Tarry- 
town, 1,642; in. Central Park, 1,462, etc. Careful and 
quiet observation, and great patience, are the essential 
means for use in getting rid of this pest. Make a rough 
plan of the land showing existing evidences of the mole’s 
presence; add to it from hour to hour the new indications; 
watch the directions of the burrows and the spot it goes 
back to. Some burrows will go straight, some various 
ways, but all will go back to the headquarters of the par- 
ticular mole who is working in them. The next stage is to 
watch the usual hour when the mole leaves his home and 
goes out to feed. If you do this very carefully you can see 
him shift the newest casts, as he passes. The most likely 
hours are between six and seven in the morning, about noon, 
and between four and five in the afternoon, but there is no 
certainty. If he has been very lucky in his hunt for food 
he may lay up for an entire day without leaving his nest. 
When the home has been determined it only remains to set 
the traps. There are many kinds of traps 
on the market, but to my mind none of 
them do the work so effectually as the pro- 
fessional wooden trap, particularly if one 
wishes to save the skin of the mole, and 
the skin when properly treated has value. 
The hide is often lost by the iron “spike 
trap” injuring the body, a result entirely 
avoided by the wooden trap. Professional 
trappers are not only looking to catch their 
game, but to have it in good condition. 
The trap, as may be seen in the illustra- 
tion, is a wooden cylinder, about six inches 
long and three inches in diameter, the 
thickness being about one half of an inch. 
A portion of this tube is cut out at the 
center, about three inches long and one 
Mole _ trap—shut 
