A simple method of controlling these mice in an orchard is to 
employ cultural practices to keep the ground free of grass and mulch 
during as much of the year as possible, so there will be no cover 
under which the mice can feed and build their nests. Fence rows 
and types of fences should be such that tney do not furnish cover. 
If the topography of the orchard and the climatic conditions are 
such that grass has to be used to prevent erosion and to retain 
moisture, it can be kept short throughout the growing season. 
Orchards should not be located in or adjacent to meadows infested 
with mice. Orchards have been freed of mice by taking these pre- 
cautions. These methods of control may obviate the need of using 
poisoned baits. 
Combating Pocket Gophers 
Pocket gophers are very destructive to grazing lands where 
conditions are favorable. In studving their habits, it has been 
observed that in those parts of infested meadows where the old native 
sod, composed of climax kinds of grasses is still present, there are 
few if any pocket gophers; while in the parts where these grasses 
have been replaced by secondary perennials and annuals, pocket gophers 
are abundant. This is because many of these secondary plants have 
fleshy or buibous root systems, whicn furnish food for the pocket 
gophers. This inferior condition of range is generally started by 
overgrazing. Where the original native sod is broken, the seeds of 
weeds have a chance to grow, and it is not long before the pocket 
gophers find such areas and dig in. As the pocket gophers extend 
their runways, they undermine the sod, after which trampling stock 
Dreak through and destroy it. This makes conditions more favorable 
for pocket gopher activity, with a still further decrease in the 
quality of the plants and the density of vegetative cover. 
It would thus seem that the best method of controlling pocket 
gophers would be to manage grazing so that the meadows would continue 
to have a close cover of grazing grasses and so naturally keep the 
animals out. Pocket gophers occur throughout the timbered glades, 
but generally not in sufficient mumbers to do serious damage. Whether 
this kind of grazing management is feasible remains to be determined. 
A study of this phase of the pocket gopher problem has been 
made in the Ochoco National Forest by A. W. Moore, of the Control 
Methods Research Laboratory, by means of a series of cuarter-—acre 
‘plots, which have been protected or unprotected from tre grazing of 
stock and game, with ard without the presence of pocket gophers. 
These plots have been under study for the past five years (1932-37). 
In the meadow where the tests are being made most of the sod had been 
destroyed by the combined effects of stock grazing and pocket 
gopher burrowing. The density of the vegetative cover in the meadow 
wee 
