Field Mice as Farm and Orchard PestsLantz, David E. (David Ernest)
Science
Field Mice as Farm and Orchard Pests
Lantz, David E. (David Ernest)
Agricultural pests; Fruit -- Diseases and pests; Microtus -- Control; Pitymys -- Control
Older orchard trees sometimes are killed by meadow mice. In Kansas in
1903 the writer saw hundreds of apple trees, 8 to 10 years planted, and
4 to 6 inches in diameter, completely girdled by these pests. (Fig.
2.) The list of cultivated trees and shrubs injured by these animals
includes nearly all those grown by the horticulturist. The Biological
Survey has received complaints of the destruction of apple, pear,
peach, plum, quince, cherry, and crab-apple trees, of blackberry,
raspberry, rose, currant, and barberry bushes, and of grape vines; also
of the injury of sugar maple, black locust, Osage orange, sassafras,
pine, alder, white ash, mountain ash, oak, cottonwood, willow, wild
cherry, and other forest trees.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Apple tree killed by meadow mice.]
In the Arnold Arboretum, near Boston, Mass., during the winter of
1903-4, meadow mice destroyed thousands of trees and shrubs, including
apple, juniper, blueberry, sumac, maple, barberry, buckthorn, dwarf
cherry, snowball, bush honeysuckle, dogwood, beech, and larch. Plants
in nursery beds and acorns and cuttings in boxes were especial objects
of attack.
The injury to trees and shrubs consists in the destruction of the bark
just at the surface of the ground and in some instances for several
inches above or below. When the girdling is complete and the cambium
entirely eaten through, the action of sun and wind soon completes the
destruction of the tree. If the injury is not too extensive prompt
covering of the wounds will usually save the tree. In any case of
girdling heaping up fresh soil about the trunk so as to cover the
wounds and prevent evaporation is recommended as the simplest remedy.
To save large and valuable trees bridge grafting may be employed.
PINE MICE.
Pine mice occur over the greater part of eastern United States from
the Hudson River Valley to eastern Kansas and Nebraska and from the
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Inhabitants chiefly of forested
regions, they are unknown on the open plains. Ordinarily they live in
the woods, but are partial also to old pastures or lands not frequently
cultivated. From woods, hedges, and fence rows they spread into
gardens, lawns, and cultivated fields through their own underground
tunnels or those of the garden mole. The tunnels made by pine mice
can be distinguished from those made by moles only by their smaller
diameter and the frequent holes that open to the surface.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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