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Show OCTOBER IS THE TIME TO RID FIELDS OF POCKET GOFERS Pocket gophers, pests of alfalfa fields have life habits that tend to lull the farmers Jnto allowing them more securiity than they deserve. They seem to "ply possum." according accord-ing to A. E. Oman, leader in the rodent rod-ent control efforts in Kansas by the Biological Survey of the United States Department of Agriaulture. In spring and summer when the alfalfa grower is in his fields cutting his hay crop he finds few new evidences evid-ences of the multiplication of pocket gophers in the form of new mounds of loose earth, thrown up from the tunnels they dig. It is not until late in September or until October that the mounds multiply. All during dur-ing spring and summer the pocket gophers are irearing their yooing and f orkin,g from the old tunnels, clipp-'ng clipp-'ng and eating the top roots and laterals of the alfalfa and causing scanty nourishment or death to the plants. The animals are ouit of sight but they are not really "playing", "Possum" Each pair of old pocket gophers is raising fouir or five youngsters young-sters that are intense (individual and that in fall will strike out for themselves, them-selves, dig their own burrows, make the fields pumpy and difficult for the haymakers and prepare for more multiplication the next spring. The practical procedure for ridding the fields of pocket gophers is to let them make a fa r start with their how burrows in the fall and then pu. ,ut poisoned wheat in a systematic malnner so that all -may have their fill. In the autumn fields the new buiirovs can be located easily and effectively, and this is the season when the pocket gophers are laying in their winter 'board of food. |