The pocket gophers of the United States . pear before manunless as the result of his direct andcontinuous efforts toward their de-struction. They remain in his fieldsworking havoc among crops, killinghis choicest trees, eating the roots from garden vegetables, and destroy-ing meadows and fields of grain. Theybreed and multiply beneath hisveryfeet, and work as silently and unob-servedly as the frost, while the resultof their work is shown above their tun-nels by lines of slathering and dyingplants. There is another side to the ques-tion, and the Gophers should be givenfull credit for the import
The pocket gophers of the United States . pear before manunless as the result of his direct andcontinuous efforts toward their de-struction. They remain in his fieldsworking havoc among crops, killinghis choicest trees, eating the roots from garden vegetables, and destroy-ing meadows and fields of grain. Theybreed and multiply beneath hisveryfeet, and work as silently and unob-servedly as the frost, while the resultof their work is shown above their tun-nels by lines of slathering and dyingplants. There is another side to the ques-tion, and the Gophers should be givenfull credit for the important part they have played in mixing andenriching soils. Still, the verdict must go against them. We mustprotect our crops. There is no demand for legislation or for any concerted action. Thebounty system has been repeatedly tried and has always proved afailure and a waste of the funds of county or State, as shown is little difficulty in destroying the Gophers on a farm, and oncereduced their numbers may be easily Fig. 1.—Face of Geomys bursari/us, show-ing grooved upper incisors and opening ofcheek pouches. Fig. 2.—Face of Thomomys talpoides,showing plane upper incisors andopeningsof cheek pouches. <;i;neual habits. Underground life,— Even where Gophers are so numerous as to beexceedingly troublesome, tew people are familiar with them in life; theykeep so close to tlieir underground tunnels as to be rarely observedunless caught in traps. By patient watching a little brown head may Io\v<\slii«;l< County, Iowa, paid $14,000 in bounties, at the rale of 10 cents ascalp, in 1300. GENERAL HABITS. 11 sometimes be seen for an instant while the animal pushes a load ofearth from a freshly opened hole; and on rare oeeasions the wholeanimal appears above ground but disappears again so quickly that theeye hardly catches its form. Still more rarely one may be met withfollowing a road or path remote from its hole. As Pocket Gophers spend their lives u
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Keywords: ., bookauthorbaileyve, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1895
