At times these little animals became so numerous and destructive to crops they were more to be feared than is the rabbit in California or grasshopper in Kansas. For many years, settlers were obliged to guard their fields when planted with corn, or droves of foraging bands would dig up the hills and eat the growing grains; when the crops matured, they were still more destructive, and boys when quite young were taught to handle the rifle, and when employed as guards became expert marksmen. Most every one old enough to use a gun could put a ball through the head of a squirrel three times in five or better on the topmost boughs of the lofty hardwood timber which covered the face of the country. The amount of forest was so extensive and undisturbed that the squirrel at times increased to a degree which made him disastrous to crops in spite of guards, guns, traps, and “deadfalls,” and caused him to become a subject for legislation, encouraging his destruction by obligations and rewards. When becoming too numerous, and subsistence scarce, they migrate to other parts, and often in numbers so great it would require many days for the marching column of several miles in width to pass any given point. The Ohio river was a favorable place to capture and kill them, as they arrived on shore weak and wet. Many were drowned in the attempt to swim. The inhabitants along the river at such times made it a business to kill them by wagon loads to feed and fatten hogs. The country through which an army of this kind marched left nothing out doors in the way of subsistence. The first migration of this kind causing serious alarm occurred in 1807 directly after corn-planting; and in all the southern counties of the state, it became impossible to guard the fields, and continued so long that the corn crop was a failure over a large extent of country, and farmers were obliged to buy grain for bread. The legislature was appealed to, and a statute enacted the same year, making it imperative for every person within the state, subject to the payment of tax, to furnish a specified number of squirrel scalps, to be determined by the trustees of the township, whose duty it was to give the lister the number required from each individual. This was intended as a tax in addition to other taxes, making the penalty for refusal or neglect the same as that of a delinquent tax-payer. And a non-tax-payer, and tax-payers furnishing scalps in excess of the required number, were entitled to two cents per scalp, to be paid from the funds of the county. But, with all the boys and guns and other devices for destruction to keep the number down to a minimum, the usual amount seemed but little changed, and squirrel raids continued, occasionally, all the same.