424 Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture^ 19£Ct 



Eating Up the Margin of Profit. 



For many years farmers and stockmen, in numerous in- 

 Stances driven to the verge of desperation by constantly 

 recurring losses, endeavored to clear their holdings of rodent 

 pests, only to find their methods ineffective or their lands 

 constantly reinfested by animals coming in from adjacent 

 Government lands or from those of their less thrifty and en- 

 ergetic neighbors. Large sums were expended by States, 

 counties, and townships for bounties, only to disclose that, 

 while their treasuries were greatly depleted, the animal pests 

 persisted in practically undiminished numbers. Manufac- 

 turers and dealers in commercial poison preparations were 

 reaping a constantly increasing harvest through the sale of 

 their products, while the farmer saw his crop returns con- 

 stantly reduced by the inroads of rodent pests. 



The Biological Survey received many urgent appeals for 

 help from the far-western States, the cry being that if the 

 rodents could not be controlled the people would have to 

 abandon their ranches. In many instances it was apparent 

 that the portion of the crop eaten by the rodents represented 

 the difference between a comfortable profit and a distinct 

 loss on the year's enterprise. A profit of 10 per cent on a 

 given business turnover is usually accounted a fair return. 

 On the farms of western States prairie dogs, ground squir- 

 rels, pocket gophers, jack rabbits, and similar rodent pests 

 were commonly cutting down the crop yields 10, 20, and 30 

 per cent, ana in many instances were destroying the entire 

 stand. 



When farmers became aware of the extent of these losses 

 they were eager to learn how to obtain permanent relief. 

 When Department specialists and county agents had gone 

 out into the grain fields and demonstrated beyond question 

 the amount of loss involved, by measuring off the area of a 

 given crop ;md the part that had been destroyed by rodents, 

 the farmers began to see the importance of having this mar- 

 gin placed on the credit side of the farm account book or in 

 their bank, instead of having it consumed for the immediate 

 requirements of these myriads of small raiders or stored as 

 fat for their subsistence while indulging in their long hiber- 

 nation sleep. 



