,<*0 N I T ED^STAT E S 

 -DEPARTM.ENT 

 OF AGRICULTURE 



OFKICE 



INTFORMATIGN 



WITH UNCLE SAI^»S NATURALISTS Friday, February 28, 1930 



NOT FOR PUBLICATION 



Speaking Time: 10 Minutes. 



All Regions. 



CONTROL OF COTTONTAIL AI--TD JACK RABBITS« 



OPENING ANNOUNCE}v!EOT: Every two weeks at this time our Wilds Man tells 

 us aoout his visits with Uncle Sam's Naturalists. Today he is going to 

 talk atout controlling cottontail and jack rabbits. He got this rabbit 

 ir-formation from the United States Biological Survey and then dressed it 

 up with stories, dogs, guns, and hunting trips, so, if you can spare the 

 time, come on and join the hunt. All right, Mr. Wilds '4an. 



*** 



Well folks, get your guns and come on- — we're going rabbit hunt- 

 ing. Not going to do any real killing just a lot of talking. 



Rabbits are so plentiful in ms.ny parts of this country that, like the 

 weather, they furnish a timely subject of conversation most anywhere. If 

 our rabbits were trained soldiers wc could capture the rest of the world 

 without firing a single gun. But rabbits are not soldiers. One sagebrush 

 farmer in the West once said, "A jack/ rabbit is an everlasting appetite 

 with 4 legs to carry it around to 'pester' folks trying to make a living 

 farming." 



Before we get too far with this hunt I want to say that complete 

 extermination of rabbits in any part of the United Sto.tes is neither de- 

 sira,ble nor possible. So, don't you rabbit lovers and rabbit hunters 

 worry,—— there'll be plenty of the four-legged hoppers left when we get 

 through. In sane sections of the West, jack rabbits are killed by the 

 10,000, and one nam estimated that there were more than 12,000,000 in one 

 State. We have jack ra'cbits west of the Mississippi River and cottonta.ils 

 east of that body of water, and just plain rabbits all over the country. 

 They're in fence-comers, ditch-banks, hollow- trees, and as the Western 

 farmer says, "sleep in the forks of sage bushes." 



W. E. Crouch, of the United States Biological Survey, gave me some 

 interesting facts about this 4-legged juniper with the long ears. Mr. 

 Crouch aids the farmer in the control of rodents and predatory aniinals. 



To start with let's cut our rabbits in two and make 2 big divisions. 

 East of the Mississippi River we find Peter Eabbit and Old Molly Cottonr- 

 tail. Cottontail rabbits are plentiful in this section of the country. 

 They are piorely vegetarians, and have never been known to catch boil 

 weevils or corn borers, or to aid the farmer in any way except to eat up 

 his crops. They are troublesome pests in many sections east of the Mis- 



