Vo l. 8 , No. 5 
Page 6 
> 4 _H Area. Stands of annual weeds may have provided nesting cover or rearing cover 
for rabbits; or, they may have produced some quantity or quality of food that 
enhanced reproductive success and survival. Whatever specific need of the cotton¬ 
tail rabbit was fulfilled by these stands of weeds apparently was important to 
reproduction and/or survival of juveniles. 
This situation illustrates an important point. The 4-H Area today fulfills 
some of the commonly used criteria of good game habitat. It has a great variety 
of habitat types, well interspersed. Many of the currently recommended plantings 
are present on the area -- pine windbreaks and block plantings, multiflora rose 
hedges, and a variety of shrubs. A management program based upon the rule-of- 
thumb practices of creating variety and edge-effect might produce this kind of 
habitat. However, the area is now producing less than half the fall population of 
cottontails that it once produced. Apparently, this is because the variety of 
habitat types present -- no matter how well interspersed -- has not provided some¬ 
thing needed for high reproductive success and/or survival of cottontails during 
the summer and early fall. That needed something seems to have been contained in 
stands of annual weeds. 
Table 5> Habitat changes on the Allerton Park 4-H Area, 1956-64. 
Percent 
of 
Area in Each Habitat Type 
Habitat T''oe 
1956 
i 960 
1964 
Annual Weeds 
46 
28 
8 
Grass 
20 
27 
25 
Shrubs and Hedges 
6 
7 
7 
Successionai Land 
9 
16 
35 
Forested Land* 
19 
22 
24 
Areas in which trees 
did not form a c } osed 
were large enough to be 
canopy were designated as 
evident on aerial 
successional land 
photographs but 
+ 
Areas in which trees 
formed a closed canopy were 
designated as 
forested land. 
