OCR Text |
Show POCKET GOPHERS ARE MENACE TO FARMERS Neighborhood Party Plan Successful Suc-cessful in Nebraska. Eradication of Pests Difficult Unless All Farms in the Community Ars Cleaned Up In no Campaign Plan Outlined. (Prepared by the United States Department of Agriculture.) The neighborhood party Idea has been successfully applied to gopher elimination in Furnas county, Nebraska, Ne-braska, under the direction of a specialist spe-cialist of the biological survey and the extension agent in co-operative work of the United States Department of Agriculture and the State College of Agriculture. The eradication of pocket gophers Is very difficult unless all the farms in a district are cleaned up In one campaign. cam-paign. A district two or three miles long is selected by the county agent, and farmers in this district are invited in-vited to a gopher poisoning party. A full attendance is usually secured. The morning session Is given to a demonstration In cutting the bait and applying the poison. Sufficient bait is prepared to supply the party for the day. In the afternoon, the party is divided into pairs, one person carrying the bait and placing it in the runways, while the other person uses a prod to locate and open the runways. The county agent or specialist spends some time with each pair, giving instructions. instruc-tions. All the infested area represented repre-sented by the farmers attending the "party" is covered and poison bait applied. ap-plied. In many cases a second day is required to complete the work, but all members of the party Invariably stay with the Job until it is finished. In Furnas county the work has been confined to the- alfalfa fields in the valley lands along three Important streams, the Republican river, and the Beaver and the Sappa creeks. All last , summer the farmers were constantly reminded of the importance of the work, and excellent results were obtained ob-tained from -the community field parties par-ties in the fall. In the cnmpalgn 2,500 acres were covered. Figuring the advantage ad-vantage to the farmers in being rid of pocket gophers as half a ton of alfalfa per acre, this area would mean 1,250 , tons, or $10,000 saved. Plants .Encourage Disease. I Wild cucumber vine and milkweed ' are host plants for cucumber mosaic or "pickle" disease. It is a safe plan to keep all wild cucumbers away from the garden or cucumber field. |