The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1884-03-26
The Mole.

The mole Is considered q nuisance II
not worse, generally worse. We have
known farmers and gardeners to soak
seed in poison to kill the mole. But
the creature does not want the farmr IS
or gardeners seed. 1t is naturally in
sectiverous and carnivorous. In its
burrowing it, of course, runs through
the seed hills and rows, and may cut of
the tender roots of plants and even
heave the plants and when driven to il
will eat the seed. This is to be regret
ted. But we must not look only to the
losses from the mole. 1t confers some
benefit. The question is, how muchp
If it does more good than evil, it is
friend and not an enemy. We are
aware that the question is one that is
difficult to answer, and that it can not
be answered except in a general way
One thing we do know; the mole must
live, and as it lives principally upon the
insect life under the ground, 1t must de-
your large quantities of the pupe of in
sect enemies, worms, etc. Perhaps the
mole will have to be placed with the
birds in our estimate of It's value. 1t
will not do to charge him with every
thing and credit him with nothing. We
can conceive of no greater injury being
done the farmer and gardener than the
killing off of all the birds. If the birds
were gone we would soon find that the
fruit that had been saved from their
denredations, had been saved at ruin
Gus cost. More properly speaking,
however, in many cases there would be
no fruit saved The insects would de-
stroy the whole crop.
There is no mistake about it, as rule
we show little appreciation of our va
rious mute friends, the birds, moles,
toads, and the natural enemies OF in-
sects. If it were not for them, we
would be eaten up alive. There is
scarcely an insect that troubles our
crops that would not at times at least,
make our fields and gardens barren, but
for their natural enemies and for the
depredations of birds and perhaps moles
and toads and even snakes. But gen
orally we make indiscriminate war upon
all these. The whole force of many
farm will turn out to kill a snake, if one
is discovered on the premises; and we
confess we do not like snake ourselves.
But many of these snakes DESTROY large
numbers of nice and field rats, and per-
haps we may be paving dearly for the
satisfaction of our prejudices or fears by
killing them. Moles are sometimes so
numerous that the, do great damage,
and it seems advisable to poison or trap
them. But even then the remedy may
prove worse than the dsea3e. { er-
tainly we ought to stop the indiscrimin-
ate slaughter OF the lower animals that
in est the fields and woods. Il we kill
il should be done only alter fully under
standing the uses of our victims, and
carefully comparing the good with the
evil they do. We think that we
can well afford tn give the birds
the little fruit they eat and perhaps,
too, we can better afford to suffer the
injury done by the moles rather than
kill them. except pei haps under pecu-
iar circumstances. Still we do not like
moles, and we generally trap them.
But the point we wish to make is, that
. ought to study such matters more
carefully than we usually do. - WesIerD
p:.=A JrayeIer VINO naa stopped at q
third-class inn said in an angry tone 10
the inn keeper: at is abominable! l
was devoured all night long by the
bed-bugs." "That's very astonishing"
replied the inn-keeper, innocently.
Yesterday my waiter and killed
more than hundred and fifty Of them
in your chamber" ."-Atlanta Co,astitu.
ton.