Show 1 aa aa 74 t 7 Many completed traps asid and making ra more 4 W V 1 WA these rat box and bait traps were developed by frank hale rodents OBI on the farms gardens orchards and open rane 9 the most common rodents of this county living outside of our d dael w e I 1 lings are the deer pine meadow mice pocket gophers and the kan rat these species of rodents are not quite so harmful to our health I 1 know of no diseases they have spread here except tularemia and rocky mountain fever and these only by the rabbit but the loss in dollars caused by the above named pests would really be hard to esti mate when prices of food were low government experts placed the monthly damages at per month in the U S A I 1 feel sure these figures are far too low I 1 cave have this belief on actual losses within our own county damage to alfalfa heavy our losses are really heavy yet there are many farmers and stock men who fail to see it or pay much attention to it these losses were taking place they were young and just continued on each year it is a loss that in most cases is just taken for granted the al falfa fields were covered with pocket gopher mounds the first time they remember seeing them years ago they are still covered about the only time th they ey give them any thought is when they raise the devil with their mowing n g and then the cussing they do does n t harm the gopher yet the dam age the gopher does to kanj man of our alfalfa crops would total 25 per cent of Us its annual value you may think this is a little high I 1 hope you do so that I 1 can show you and others that it is not grain fields destroyed I 1 don dont t think there are many farmers in this valley but that have seen complete fields of gram grain des troyed by rodents and we all know how common it is to see three or four rods around the fields eaten each year this out side complete loss we see but a large percent age of the center is also gone most of us fail to notice this did you ever eat corn or v ater melons grown on the south side of this valley I 1 hae haie and if you have I 1 im in sure you 11 agree with me that there was never any better yet all farmers failed out there why the kangaroo rat and deer mouse know the answer if they didn dian t find the seeds before the farmer got them out of his wagon they were not long getting them after they were planted the ground el and arid the rabbit got most of what was left before they got ripe im quite sure there never were more than 10 percent of any melons left for us kids tads the farm er was the first to starve lout out I 1 give the rodents 90 percent of the blame rodents helped cause dust bowl you all remember a few years back what a dust bowl this valley was it was not a fit place to live the speed limit on our own high ways was 10 miles per hour and in that dust and those drifts of sand it require any speed cops to hold the traffic down all the benefit the people got from these dust storms w was as it cut down the cost of tooth powder there was plenty of sand in our food to keep our teeth polished we blamed this dust on the drouth but most of it was caused by over grazing from livestock and an excess of rodents at that time we moved the In livestock estock off easily but believe me the fight we ve had with the rodents was not so easy the long hungry kangaroo rats hung aung around on top of the sand knolls and then had a foot ra race e for or the first spear of vegetation vega tation that showed up rodent enemies killed off it s been a long hard fight to get the rodents of this rangeland under control it has cost a lot of money but either we had to go or the rodents perhaps that is enough said a bout our rangeland for now many young fruit trees within our state are killed each year by the rodents cutting the roots enough to cut deep into the profits of the per son spending years to try and raise an orchard the same it true with in the garden and many unsightly messes made on lawns by the go pher mounds why such heavy losses today this it u why hy nature has been thrown off balance let s just take these figures for this valley then youl you lagree with my man of and have proven very effective against the mar has got to help even things up A few years back this valley had a bout badgers 70 coyotes 30 bobcats bob cats 1000 hawk owls and birds of prey that fea feci principally on ro dents these enemies of rodent sate about 2 2000 per day or 73 per year today all these enemies of the ro dent are gone pair produces 1500 offspring yearly the increase from a single pair of rodents and their descendants has been known to be as high as 1500 per year you just put a few of these figures together then when you see the signs of any kinds of rodent see what you can do about it on many of our al falfa fields the value of ibs lbs of hay spent in control of the go pher would save several tons how ilow is the best way to prevent these losses the tooele thoele county rodent board members are ready to help you mr smith our chair man and county farm agent the state and federal bureaus are all ready to do what they can let s get together and save a part of that per month adding rodents of this area photo by W D bush |