274 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
THE WOODCHUCK HUNT. 
and the many home comforts within. If the comparison 
makes you the more contented with your own—and it is 
a fact, that boys, and girls too, are more apt to compare 
their own lot with that of those who are belter off, than 
with that of those who are more poorly off than them¬ 
selves—if, we say, a comparison makes you better appre¬ 
ciate the home, such as it is, and brings that content 
without which no home can be happy—then it will be 
'yell that you have taken a glimpse at the way farmers 
live in Russia. Recollect ‘‘ There is no place like home.” 
Knntiiig' the Wooilchuck. 
The Woodchuck is one of the most common wild ani¬ 
mals in the United States east of the Mississippi River. 
I wonder how many boys and girls within this great 
Woodchuck region have seen, run after, and perhaps 
-JJKaicn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
ravines in proximity to clover and grain fields, but it has 
been my observation that they are specially fond of such 
situations. It is no rare thing to find their burrows and 
mounds of dirt scattered over the level fields and their 
winding paths running from them to some favorite feed¬ 
ing ground or watering place. They do much damage to 
crops, and obstruct the reaper and mower by their hil¬ 
locks of earth and treacherous holes. Woodclm. ks, as 
they feed upon various crops, and are especially destruc¬ 
tive to clover, are considered a nuisance—a common 
enemy, which every farmer’s boy feels that he has a right 
to hunt and destroy. All who have tried it will agree 
with me when I say that they are not easily caught, and 
it is sometimes a serious matter to get rid of them. 
Their burrows are so long and deep that to dig them out 
of house and home is not an easy task. Some people, 
with more noise and expense than success, load the hole 
spent much time in making 
“dead falls,” which were 
set at the entrance of many 
a Woodchuck’s hole, but if 
my memory is correct, I never 
secured a single specimen in 
this way. At first I used to sit 
behind a distant fence, expect¬ 
ing that I should have the fun 
ol observing the capture, and 
pictured in imagination what I 
should do provided several traps 
should spring at the same mo¬ 
ment; but those hours grew so 
long, and my expectations faded 
tuvay so rapidly, that I was 
soon content to visit my “dead 
falls” at distant intervals, 
and at length gave up all hope 
ot catching, a Woodchuck in 
that way. The “ trap ” was too 
plain to their sharp eyes, and 
with due caution “they passed 
by on the other side.”—I think 
that it was the next season that 
the steel-trap was employed; 
but the old fellows had learn¬ 
ed my intentions, and with all 
my pains they came out ahead. 
I thought I did everything 
needful for successful trap¬ 
ping, but success did not follow. 
Several times the trap would be 
sprung and carried into the hole, 
but upon pulling it out, with 
throbbing heart and anxious 
eyes, there would be nothing 
more than a few hairs. It 
would have been just as easy 
to have written that I came 
off a hero with a fine stock of 
skins to show for my work, but 
the truth is preferred. I did 
not get back Hie interest on my 
money invested in the traps. 
I never eveu got all my traps 
back; but I do not lay that up against the Woodchucks. 
Boys who would hunt this pest of the farm with some 
degree of success, should have a faithful and resolute 
dog who can dig and bark. With a long sapling—you 
may be able to make it so uncomfortable for the Wood¬ 
chuck-, that in the very face of danger he may be made to 
leave his hole. If he lives beneath a stump pile or a 
stone fence, as may be the case in the picture, so much 
the more fun, because it gives each boy a greater op¬ 
portunity to be active in the fight. As the matter stands 
in the engraving, we would not ensure a capture of the 
prey ; the head of the horizontal youth in the foreground 
seems to be in more danger than the Woodchuck. It 
will be sometime before these boys get back to the place 
where they unceremoniously left off hoeing the corn, and 
the neighbor’s boy who hoard the fun and is hurrying to 
the rescue, will doubtless linger until the supper-bell— 
been scared by this stout, broad-headed, black-eyed, pro¬ 
verbially plump-cheeked, short-legged, and altogether 
rather fat animal ? I remember, when a boy, they some¬ 
times called me “as fat as a woodchuck,” and I some¬ 
times thought they took me for a real one when I was 
sent under the low barn and into all sorts or dark holes 
for the eggs in stray hen’s nests. The Woodchuck by no 
means confines himself to river banks and the sides of 
view or a Russian FARM village. —{See preceding page. 
(suppose it to be an old one or while the inmatee are out.!) 
with powder, plug it up, and by means of a fuse attempt 
to blow them up. To drown them out is not an easy 
task, especially if the soil is dry and the burrow is long 
and nearly horizontal. They are sometimes poisoned 
with strychnine put in some food and dropped near the 
entrance, but there is danger in this, as the wrong 
animal may get the poison.—When I was a hoy I 
that powerful magnet of the farm—draws him home. 
A word of caution, drawn from experience—boys, if you 
have “company ” at home—some city cousins perhaps— 
and you wish to meet them in the parlor—when you are 
looking for woodchucks, be careful that you do not thrust 
your long pole into the subterranean home of a peculiarly 
defensive and offensive creature, which an Irishman call¬ 
ed “a foin spotted cat.” Uncle n>i, 
