Vol. LIX. No. 2607. 
$1 PER YEAR, a 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 13, 1900. 
WHAT / KNOW ABOUT GROUND HOGS. 
THEY WILE SMOKE “CHEMICALS”. 
A Rifle the Best Remedy. 
THE WISE WOODCHUCK—I think I know a good 
deal. But I Willingly acknowledge that the ground 
hog (or woodchuck) knows^p. good deal more about 
me. I have the greatest respect for the ground hog’s 
intelligence. He not only has brains, but, what is 
more important, he uses them. If all farming men 
would do the same there would be fewer abandoned 
farms, and fewer complaints that “farming does not 
pay.” My farm is well populated with these animals. 
They are a nuisance, but not so destructive, in a 
money sense, of green crops as they are sometimes 
held up to be. If they did me no dam¬ 
age beyond eating the grass and clover 
they want for food, I would not make 
war on them. But their holes in the 
fields are dangerous in plowing time, 
and they do me positive damage in my 
fruit orchards. I do not find that they 
nibble the bark like rabbits, but they 
stand up by the trees, as cats do, and 
“sharpen their claws” on the bark, 
making a peach tree or an apple tree 
as ragged as if it had been gone over 
with a file. So, as they are of no pos¬ 
sible use, I determined two years ago 
to wage war on them. 
SHARPSHOOTERS NEEDED. — A 
shotgun and rifle were my first 
weapons. I was assured that I would 
have no trouble to shoot them. The 
farm boy told of seeing them every 
day sitting up by their holes or run¬ 
ning near by, and an old inhabitant 
assured me that between four o’clock 
and sundown they were always out. I 
hid myself near a likely hole (in fact, 
within gunshot of several holes), and 
waited until it was too dark to shoot, 
but never a hog appeared. I could see 
several in view near holes that were 
out of shot, but near me not one ap¬ 
peared. Hours have I watched thus 
with the same result. Driving along 
the road to the post office, near a fa¬ 
vorite settlement of the animals, in 
the late afternoon, a colony would be 
in sight. The next evening, when I 
was carefully hidden near the same 
place, there was no indication that 
there was a ground hog in the town¬ 
ship. One rainy day last Summer, 
with a telescope in hand, I sat on the 
porch and counted five of them feed¬ 
ing in an upper field. Five hours’ 
watching, a few days later, on the 
same ground, did not reveal one within rifle shot. 
The caution of the animal is wonderful. Those I 
watched with the glass were in a field that com¬ 
manded the approach for a long ^distance from all 
directions. But every one of them stopped after feed¬ 
ing for a moment to look over the whole territory, 
often sitting up to get a better view. To have sur¬ 
prised one would have been impossible. But the farm 
boy, going carelessly about his work, can walk near 
enough to them very often, to make a shot a cer¬ 
tainty, “if he had only had a gun.” 
CHEMICALS FAIL.—I then took counsel of my ag¬ 
ricultural papers. One of these told me that the 
fumes of bisulphide of carbon were deadly to the 
ground hog, and that if I would put this substance 
in a hole and plug it up with dirt and stones, all the 
inhabitants of that hole, at least, would come out no 
more. I purchased a bottle of the stuff, selected holes 
so made that no concealed second exit was possible, 
saturated balls of cotton waste with the chemical, 
rolled them far in and waited. Every hole was dug 
out clean in from 24 to 48 hours. The farm boy, who 
is wicked, said the ground hogs used my chemical for 
hair oil. Then I got other advice. Prof. F. H. Storer, 
in the Bulletin of the Bussey Institute, told me of a 
“woodchuck torch,” prepared by a Massachusetts 
man, which would do the trick without fail. They 
were a kind of Roman candle, which gave out stifling 
fumes that no animal could endure. You first bought 
the torches, “at the modest price of eight cents each,” 
inserted them in the holes, closed the latter carefully, 
and, “from the fumes of these extremely powerful en¬ 
gines no woodchuck has thus far escaped.” 
I sent to Boston for a dozen of the torches, ready to 
exhaust the maker’s stock if necessary, and if they 
proved effective. The bill came first. Twenty-five 
cents each, instead of eight, plus the express charges. 
But I did not care. Again I chose my field of opera¬ 
tion with care, so that no concealed exit would cause 
my experiment to fail. Fastening a torch on a pole, 
I lighted it and thrust it as far into a hole as it would 
go. The fumes were satisfactory (to the human 
nose), and there were lots of them. I closed the hole 
with elaborate skill, giving the occupant no small job 
to dig through my impediments alone. Five holes I 
thus medicated, and then I waited. The next day 
not a hole was open. I was encouraged. But within 
48 hours every one of these holes was dug out. The 
wicked farm boy declared that he saw one hog sitting 
by his hole, using the empty tube of a torch for a 
telescope. Our Jersey ground hogs may be more vigor¬ 
ous, or more chemical-proof than those of other re¬ 
gions, but, at any rate, I can testify that they are 
proof against bisulphide of carbon and Wedger’s 
torches. Notwithstanding my own bad luck, I think 
the rifle is the best remedy. I am not expert with 
that weapon, but I know that a man who is, and who 
had a bounty of 10 cents a head to incite him, did 
kill about 70 on my farm and the next a few years 
ago. The bounty has not since been voted, and the 
natural increase has shown itself. w. a. l. 
SELLING FRUIT IN LOCAL MARKETS—I gen¬ 
erally contract my berries to a firm in Butler, a 
small place four miles distant, at about 
six cents per quart the season through. 
What I lose in the beginning of the 
season, when berries are high, I more 
than make up later,on, when the mar¬ 
ket becomes overstocked. I like this 
way of selling berries; no time is lost 
by having to retail, no berries are 
wasted or sold for next to nothing; 
every quart taken in is paid for. I 
have taken in as high as 200 quarts 
a day, and the store sold all, and was 
generally ready for more. I think that 
there are many places where my plan 
of selling berries would work well. I 
am within 30 miles of Cincinnati, yet 
I could have made but l'ittle above ex¬ 
penses shipping there last year. Our 
berries bring in some money besides 
furnishing the family much good eat¬ 
ing, and there are about 99 out of 100 
families that do not know how much 
they are missing by not having a 
patch large enough to raise all the 
berries they can use. a. m. mdlloy. 
Pendleton County, Ky. 
MEAT IN THE TROPICS—I think 
that the National Provisioner is right 
as to meat eaters, on page 869; that is, 
as far as my experience goes. I spent 
about 2% years in Cuba before the 
American army landed there. The 
first 10 months were spent in the Prov¬ 
ince of Puerto Principe, where, before 
the war with Spain, the farmers raised 
very little besides cattle, and meat was 
all we had to eat. There was not more 
than one day in a week, and sometimes 
one in a month, that we had any vege¬ 
tables. We lost the desire for vege¬ 
tables, but craved something sweet all 
the time. One great dish was boiled or 
roast meat, with honey or molasses, 
and for that 10 months there never 
was one of us sick a day. Then we went up in the 
Province of Santiago de Cuba, where there is little 
else but sugar, coffee, cocoa, and bananas. We had 
nothing but vegetables to eat, sometimes for a 
stretch of three months at a time. All we ate wa* 
bananas and sweet potatoes, without any meat. Then 
we began to get sick, and we would stay sick until 
we were sent back to the Province of Puerto Prin¬ 
cipe; there, on meat, we would build our systems up 
again. From what I have seen there, I think that the 
National Provisioner is right, for all the children I 
saw were narrowed to smallness in stature, intellect 
and feeling, with the exception of the stomach, which 
was two or three times its natural size. There 
is no doubt in my mind but in the tropics one’s sys¬ 
tem requires more meat and sugar than in the north. 
Washington. J. p. 
/ 
A WONDERFUL JAPANESE TREE. Fig. 6. See Ruralisms, Page 22. 
