14 



Farmers' Bulletin 12M . 



and sometimes ordinary house mice, rats, and pocket gophers, find 

 these tunnels convenient highways for traffic and marauding. As a 

 result of this trespassing the reputation of the mole suffers, for most 

 of the injury to seed grains, tubers, and roots of cultivated plants is 

 directly chargeable to these intruding rodents. A study of tooth 

 marks on the damaged products or the systematic trapping of the 

 intruders will bear out this statement. In the East, Middle West, or 

 Far West, wherever a count is made of the occupants of mole runs, 

 the trespassers are usually found to be much more numerous than the 

 moles themselves. 



CONTROLLING THE MOLE. 



Experience in dealing with the mole problem over many years 

 shows that it is impracticable to poison these little animals or to 

 combat them successfully in any way except by the use of the trap. 

 The very nature of their food makes it difficult to secure an acceptable 

 substitute for the living grubs, worms, and insects upon which they 

 feed. Then, too, they seem shrewd and quick to sense the danger in 

 poisoned substances. 



They may be driven from certain parts of their burrows by intro- 

 ducing substances that are ill smelling or in other respects offensive 

 or injurious to them ; but this is only temporizing with the evil and 

 not getting rid of it. One may occasionally drown out a mole by the 

 use of a garden hose, but in this there is the risk of leaving parts of the 

 lawn or garden bogg}^ Gases introduced into the runways by spe- 

 cially designed pumps, by the evaporation of liquids on Avads of 

 absorbent material, or by the burning of " cartridges," do not always 

 reach that part of the burrow Avbcre a mole is located and whence 

 it is unable to escape. Such gases arc usually dissipated in the loose 

 soil at points where the runways are near the surface. 



WHERE TO TRAP. 



As stated in the discussion of runways and nests, the signs of a 

 mole's presence and activity are not hard to discover; the earth ridges 

 and mounds are only too conspicuous. The path on which the trap 

 must be set is thus located. For the moles east of the Rockies de- 

 pendence must usually be placed on trapping in the hunting paths 

 marked by the ridges. Trapping on the Pacific coast is attended 

 with better success when the deeper runways indicated by the mounds 

 are selected for the scene of operations. 



Many of the deeper runs of the mole are highways of common 

 traffic, used often by a number of individuals, and frequented also, 

 as previously stated, by shrews and certain species of small rodents. 

 Good catches usually may be expected from continued use of traps 



