EODENT PESTS OF THE FARM. 



9 



quantities for the future. They are destructive to other grains also 

 and dig up newly planted melon and other seeds. Vegetable garden- 

 ing is an impossibility where kangaroo rats are abundant. The 

 choice is betw^een making Avarfare on and destroying the animals or 

 abandoning cultivation. P'ortunately they take poisoned grain 

 readily and are easily trapped with baits of this kind. The poison 

 recommended for prairie-dogs is well adapted to destroy kangaroo 

 rats. Trapping with guillotine traps, although successful, is usually 

 too slow to be practicable. 



In some instances farmers in the sand-hills of the West prevent 

 depredations by kangaroo rats and succeed in growing crops of corn 

 by stirring the seed in hot water in which there has been mixed 

 enough coal tar to coat the grain slightly. A large spoonful of coal 



Fig. 4. — Kangaroo rat, adult, one day after capture. 



tar to a gallon of boiling water is used. When the mixture has cooled 

 somewhat the corn may be stirred in and allowed to remain* several 

 minutes without danger to germination. 



POCKET GOPHERS. 



Pouched rats, commonly called pocket gophers (fig. 5) , are among the 

 most serious of rodent pests in most of the States west of the Missis- 

 sippi River. They occur also in parts of Georgia, Alabama, and 

 Florida, in the greater part of Illinois, and in southern Wisconsin. 

 Outside the United States they are abundant southward in many 

 parts of Mexico and Central America, and northward in northwestern 

 Canada to Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan Valley. 



Nine groups, or genera, of pocket gophers are recognized, but only 

 three of them occur north of Mexico. Two of these ^ have a very 



1 (7fOOT(/.9 and Thomomys. 

 48803°— 18— Bull. 932 2 



