G Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture. 



States Relations Service of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, and the North Dakota Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station and Extension Service, including the connty- 

 agent organization. With commendable foresight the State 

 legislature provided a revolving fund, available for use in 

 procuring and maintaining the required stock of poison sup- 

 plies. State enactments also authorized county commission- 

 ers upon petition of resident landowners to provide funds 

 and to enforce the destruction of prairie-dogs, ground squir- 

 rels, pocket gophers, and certain other rodents which were 

 declared a nuisance. 



The initial campaign was launched against the Richardson 

 ground squirrel, commonly known locally as "gopher." 

 This animal each year caused enormous losses of grain 

 despite large sums which were being expended in unavailing 

 efforts to combat it. Farmers were so familiar with these 

 losses that little effort was required to convince them of the 

 importance of eradicating this pest. So many kinds of poi- 

 son preparation had been tried by them at great expense and 

 with unsatisfactory results, however, that they were skepti- 

 cal about the practicability of all such means applied to field 

 conditions. 



The Biological Survey and the North Dakota Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station had planned and conducted an 

 extended series of experiments with many kinds of poisons 

 and baits to determine a method which would be effective 

 and economical under the usual farm practice. Such a poi- 

 son was devised and tested thoroughly at many points within 

 the range of this ground squirrel and was recommended for 

 use. Wide publicity was given the work by publications, 

 farmers' meetings, and field demonstrations throughout the 

 infested portions of the State. The demonstrations, afford- 

 ing, as they did. ocular evidence in the form of scores of dead 

 ground squirrels, were so convincing that skepticism gave 

 way to the greatest enthusiasm and willingness to join in a 

 concerted organized movement. 



Further evidence that the method offered a practical solu- 

 tion of the problem of eradicating these rodents was afforded 

 by a field party of the Biological Survey operating with 

 poison on the Fort Totten Indian Reservation near Devils 

 Lake, where the ground squirrels were being practically 



