\ M M.I I'O CK< '!•>. 
When mice are abundant during the growing season, the quantity 
of grass the} destroy is great, more being cu( down and lefl upon 
the ground than is actually consumed. In winter haj in stack 
injured l>\ held mice, and instances are known in which large stacks 
wciv so badly damaged thai in the spring little or no salable baj 
remained. 
l» \ M m.j i" OH UNA \ \i» FORAGE. 
Growing grains wheat, oats, barley, pye, and buckwheat -are 
destroyed by Held mice. Attack- begin with the sprouting grain, 
and. in the case of fall -own wheal and pye, continue during the 
entire winter. However, when only the blades of the plant- are eaten 
this winter consumption has but Little effect niton the amount of 
grain subsequently harvested. Much greater damage is done when 
the grain is nearly mature, as stalks are then cut down. After the 
grain ripen-, devastation by mice continues until after harvest, when 
the animal- attack the shocked grain and even the -tack-. The total 
amount of injury by mice depends both on the number of the animals 
present and on the length of time the grain is left in -hock-. In 
these artificial shelters mice are perfectly at home and multiply with 
great rapidity, so that within a few week- a pair and their progeny 
may totally ruin an entire -hock of wheat or oats. 
A- nearly all fanner- know. Held mice destroy corn. Kafir corn, 
and cane, whether stored in shock or in pile. The annual destruction 
both of grain and of forage throughout the country is enormous, 
although accurate statistics of losses are not available. Of course, 
not all the injury is done by short-tailed held mice. White-footed 
mice (Peromyscus) , pocket mice t Perognathus ) . harvest mice (Relth- 
rodontomys) , and ordinary house mice (Mus musculus) also are con- 
cerned in the damage. Throughout the country the brown rat (Mus 
norvegicus) and in the Southwest the cotton rat (Sigmodon) are 
serious field pests. The several kinds of field mice, however, partly 
because of their wide distribution, but mainly because of their great 
abundance, are the chief offenders in northern fields. 
Grain and forage in -tack- are often injured by field mice. In 
view of the losses to which -tacked and stored grain is subject, it is 
a question whether the farmer who hastens to market his crop is not, 
on the whole, a gainer over his neighbor who wait- for more favor- 
able price-. 
DAMAGE I'o GARDEN CROPS. 
Field mice do much injury in market and other gardens, attacking 
planted seeds in the open garden, hotbed, or cold frame. Pine mice 
are the chief offender- in in closures, sometimes working their way 
even into greenhouses, where they attack bulbs and tender growing 
plants, a- well as all kind- of -reds. 
