AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
371 
1883.] 
Animals Injurious to Agriculture.— 
The Eaceoon. 
The Raccoon (Procyon Lotor) is one of the farm¬ 
er’s enemies. It combines the cunning of the fox 
with the wisdom of the ape. There is no robber 
of chicken roosts and poultry nests more implaca¬ 
ble than the raccoon, and, unlike most predatory 
creatures, it is seldom content with killing for the 
mere satisfaction of appetite. No liight is too 
great for it to scale, or passage too concealed or 
tortuous for it to find and traverse, while its over¬ 
powering curiosity and inordinate greed, aided by 
a brain of wondrous subtleness and fertility, lead 
to the accomplishment of acts seemingly as foreign 
to its nature as they are strange to understand. 
There are few feathered creatures that do not 
become the prey of the coon, and their nests and 
eggs are diligently sought and destroyed. Of the 
birds he devours little but the heads and necks, 1 
unless pressed by hunger, while the nests and eggs 
are maliciously broken up when appetite is sati¬ 
ated. Berries of all kinds are the coon’s delight. 
When the corn is in the milk, he fairly revels 
among succulent ears, breaking down the stalks, 
during a single night destroying far more than 
would satisfy the demands of a score of hungry 
relatives. In the South be renders himself equally 
obnoxious by his soirees among the sugar cane, 
and where two or more combine, the havoc exceeds 
that of double the number operating independent¬ 
ly. At various times, coons have appeared among 
the low lands of Maryland and Virginia, about 
Chesapeake Bay, in such overwhelming numbers, 
as to force the inhabitants to take the field in a 
war of extermination, in order to preserve their 
crops, and thfe same is equally true of some por¬ 
tions of Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana. 
After a foray upon the farm yard, the raccoon is 
commonly possessed of sufficient astuteness to al¬ 
low some time to elapse before a second is at¬ 
tempted. The cane and maize fields possess such 
overflowing temptations, that all caution is forgot¬ 
ten, and the coons return night after night with 
constantly increasing impunity, uutil finally they 
are tracked to their hollow trees, or burrows, and 
summarily dragged forth and made to suffer the 
penalty of their misdeeds. Even the pumpkins 
are not always safe, though it gnaws them 
through only to secure the seeds ; and sometimes, 
in planting time, the seed-corn is uprooted for the 
sprouting kernels. 
Another source of annoyance is the coon’s love 
for the orchards, where it is wont to amuse itself 
by severing the stems, allowing the fruit to fall to 
the ground. That the act is one of pure enjoy¬ 
ment, is apparent from the attitudes it assumes, 
by sharply cocked ears, that listen for the thud as 
the fruit strikes the earth. In the sugar season, 
the maple-sap troughs and buckets are not neg¬ 
lected. I am not aware that it ever molests the 
stores of the honey-bee; presumably its coat af¬ 
fords too little protection from the stings of these 
irascible creatures, and its face and extremely sen¬ 
sitive nose would ever be open to their attacks. 
The bees themselves, however, are sometimes 
eaten by the raccoon, as are most insect forms, 
even to beetles and grubs. 
The raccoon is described as a nocturnal animal, 
while in truth all hours of the day or night are 
pretty much the same to it. Its shrewdness, how¬ 
ever, leads it to seek the cover of darkness, while 
experience has taught that fishing is attended with 
better results when practised in the shadowy and 
uncertain light of the moon. I have observed it 
at different hours during the day skulking along 
the margins of streams, hunting for frogs and tur¬ 
tles, or stalking the wild duck and her brood, and 
even feeding in the maize fields. In one in¬ 
stance the writer caught a coon invading cautious¬ 
ly the well-stocked poultry yard at high noon. 
Where only high and dry woodlands or broad 
expanses of prairie prevail, the raccoon is seldom 
encountered, save as a rambler. Low', moist 
grounds, with lofty trees, are preferred, like the 
well-wooded swamps and lagoons of the South ; 
while to the northward, forest slopes, bordering 
lakes and ponds, or traversed by brooks and rivu¬ 
lets, are selected. The purely evergreen forests of 
the North rarely shelter it, since nuts, acorns, and 
other mast are an important factor in the problem 
of life at certain seasons of the year. Hence its 
presence therein must be held as accidental. But 
wherever the coon is established, it wanders over 
wide stretches of territory in summer, often miles 
away from its home, absenting itself for days 
and even weeks, especially during the W'ooing sea¬ 
son. It is during such excursions that it is met 
with in the open prairie, being led thereto, pre-. 
sumably, in search of grouse, plover, and other 
feathered creatures and their nests, along with 
mice, hares, and gophers. 
North of Ohio and Indiana, the raccoon hiber¬ 
nates in winter, but rarely, if ever, in lower lati¬ 
tudes. But even in his most extreme northern 
habitat, the habit is by no means general or con¬ 
stant, as with the bear, but appears rather as as¬ 
sumed, to correspond with diminished food supply. 
In Northern Michigan I have found them racing 
over the snow on bright mid-winter days, while 
with the advent of extreme cold or stormy weather, 
it retired again to its peculiar sleep in the recesses 
of its lair. At the same period, a pair held in con¬ 
finement, and abundantly supplied with food, at 
no time exhibited any tendency towards hiberna¬ 
tion, though constantly refusing admission to their 
kennel of all articles looking to increased warmth, 
preferring to make their beds upon the naked 
boards. Even during the coldest days, when the 
thermometer was down in the twenties below zero, 
the advent of a tub of water was heralded with 
manifest delight, in the cold water of which 
they would paddle and play, and push the ice 
about until wetted to the skin. 
The females retire in April or May, when from 
four to six young are born, that develop but very 
slowly. The aptitude of half-grown cubs for mis¬ 
chief, and the ease with which they are domesti¬ 
cated, are familiar stories ; but as they reach ma¬ 
turity, they become even greater pests than their 
forest brethren, are great thieves, and often 
develop a most surly and snappish temperament. 
Great Loss of Jersey Cattle on the Ocean. 
In the transportation of sixty head of Jersey cat¬ 
tle on a steamer from Liverpool to New Orleans in 
May, fifty-one were lost. Some of these were 
washed overboard, while others were drowned on 
the deck through the shipping of heavy seas in a 
gale. We presume these animals were full grown, 
whereas had they been calves about six months old, 
they could have been brought over, even in the 
roughest weather, in safety under deck, and the first 
cost of their transportation would not have been 
more than one-third that of full-grown animals. 
Some persons object to importing young stock, 
fearing that such will not equal their expectations 
when arrived at maturity, but if they knew how 
the animals were bred—and what their parents 
were—there would be no risk. It has been said 
that transporting of cattle so young checks their 
growth, but this is a mistake ; they are only two or 
three weeks on the voyage, and if judiciously fed 
and watered on board ship, will thrive during the 
transit, or at least will not lose in condition. In¬ 
stead of separate stalls being required for each 
calf, three to six animals, according to size, may be 
penned together ; they will then prevent each other 
from being thrown violently down upon the floor 
of the apartment, or against the sides of the 
pen, by the rolling and pitching of the steamer. 
The season for shipping the above animals was 
fairly chosen, especially when bound to a southern 
port like New Orleans. May is not apt to be so 
tempestuous as from November to April. During 
the latter time it is extremely hazardous to trans¬ 
port five stock across the Atlantic, and it never 
should be done, especially with large animals. 
Early Plowing for Pali Wheat. 
The sins of man committed in the tillage of the 
soil have brought upon him the judgment of im¬ 
poverished land—not always lacking in the ele¬ 
ments of fertility, but barren because those elements 
have been made unavailable. When the soil is 
virgin, wheat sown upon freshly plowed and im¬ 
perfectly prepared land, sometimes makes a good 
crop ; but this can not last long. To secure a good 
yield of fall wheat, it is best to plow the ground as 
soon after harvest as possible. It should not be 
delayed after the twentieth of August near the 
fortieth parallel. 
The first object gained by early plowing, is time 
for the proper preparation of the seed-bed. All 
possible fertility should be. made readily available. 
To be so, it should be soluble, and division aids 
solution. The ground becomes hard in July and 
August, and if plowing is delayed too long, the 
soil breaks up in hard lumps. If plowed early, it 
will turn up moist and fine. Rain and air arc 
nature’s two great disintegrating forces. 
Seeds germinate quickly and plants grow rapidly 
in a firm seed-bed. The increase of insect enemies 
of wheat makes late sowing, coupled with rapid, 
vigorous growth, desirable. Hence the importance 
of a firm seed-bed, which also prevents much freez¬ 
ing out of the plants. To make the seed-bed firm, 
it must first be fine. It is not a hard soil, but com¬ 
pact, fine soil that is desired. It may be compact¬ 
ed with the roller and harrow ; but if the farmer, 
by early plowing, can gain the aid of a heavy rain, 
THE RACCOON.— Engraved, for the American Agriculturist. 
