4 



farmers' bulletin 670. 



apple trees. It was stated that during the whiter of 1901-2 nursery- 

 men near Rochester, N. Y., sustained losses from these mice amount- 

 ing to fully $100,000. 



Older orchard trees sometimes are killed by meadow mice. In 

 Kansas ui 1903 the writer saw hundreds of apple trees, 8 to 10 years 

 planted, and 4 to 6 mches in diameter, completely girdled by these 



pests. (Fig. 2.) The list of cultivated trees 

 and shrubs injured by these animals includes 

 nearly all those grown by the horticulturist. 

 The Biological Survey has received com- 

 plaints of the destruction of apple, pear, 

 peach, plum, quince, cherry, and crab-apple 

 trees, of blackberry, raspberry, rose, currant, 

 and barberry bushes, and of grape vines; 

 also of the injury of sugar maple, black 

 locust, Osage orange, sassafras, pine, alder, 

 white ash, mountain ash, oak, cotton- 

 wood, willow, w^ild cherry, and other forest 

 trees. 



In the Arnold Arboretum, near Boston, 

 Mass., during the winter of 1903-4, meadow 

 mice destroyed thousands of trees and 

 shrubs, including apple, juniper, blueberry, 

 sumac, maple, barberry, buckthorn, dwarf 

 cherry, snowball, bush honeysuckle, dog- 

 wood, beech, and larch. Plants in nursery 

 beds and acorns and cuttings in boxes were 

 especial objects of attack. 



The mjury to trees and shrubs consists 

 in the destruction of the bark just at the 

 surface of the ground and in some instances 

 for several inches above or below. When 

 the girdling is complete and the cambium 

 entirely eaten tlirough, the action of sun 

 and wind soon completes the destruction 

 rK>.3.-Root and trunk of apple of the tree. If the injury is not too exten- 



tree from Laurel, Md., gnawed siYQ, prompt COVCring of the WOUnds Will 



^^P^^'"^'''- usually save the tree. In any case of gird- 



hng heaping up fresh soil about the trunk so as to cover the wounds 

 and prevent evaporation is recommended as the simplest remedy. 

 To save large and valuable trees bridge grafting may be employed. 



PINE MICE. 



Pine mice occur over the greater part of eastern United States from 

 the Hudson River Valley to eastern Kansas and Nebraska and from 

 the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Inhabitants chiefly of for- 



