Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-06-13
PACE.
WON'T BE FOOLED WITH.
so SAYS FAIRCHiLD HOUSE CIRCLE
ABOUT GROUND HOGS.

Members of the Circle Relate Their Ex-
periences with the Smart Animal-.It
Don't Seem to Pay to Interfere with
Him-Instances Where He Got Even.
The subject of ground hog came up for
dissection at Il meeting of the Fairchild
house circle the other evening, said Judge
Ben Wright: Il had a little experience my
self with a ground hog when l lived in
Woodruff that set me to thinking that it
wasn't well to try any experiments on
them One summer cheeky chap of a
ground hog set up shop in clover field of
mine and was four story nuisance with
mansard roof. He deied all my efforts to
induce him to die or leave the country. I
was reading in my Newspaper one evening,
after long days work binding and stack
ing wheat, and came across an item that
pleased me- 1t was about a man down in
Jersey who had hit on a plan to ameliorate
the condition of farms suffering from
ground hog. He had found that by catch
ing turtle and tying ball of candle wick;
soaked with kerosene oil, to its tail, touch
ing match to the ball, and then putting
the turtle into a ground hogs hole, the
turtle would roam the corridors of the
burrow, trailing it's fire ball along with it,
and strike such terror to the hearts of the
ground hogs resident therein that they
would rush in wild panic for the surface.
All the farmer had to do was to stand on
the outside and knock the ground hogs in
the head ,.shey came out.
THP FIRE BALL TREATMENT.
"After reading the item felt had that
big clover stealing pest of mine at my mer-
cy at last. l could hardly wait till morn
ing, wanted tt, go out and get a turtle
so bad, put the kerosene and candlewick
uniform on him, and start him on the cam
paign against that ground hog. Before 8
o'clock had the whole thing fixed, and,
arming myself with an ak, went over to the
ground hogs hole put the turtle at the
mouth of the hole and lit the oil soaked
ball had tied behind him. 1t blazed up
like small bonfire, and the turtle, fright
ened at the sight, dived into the hole like a
chipmunk, and by and by disappeared with
the ball of fire into the depths. l braced
myself at the side of the hole, raised my ak
in the air, and smiled grimly as I thought
of the vengeance was soon to wreak on the
destroyer of my peace and clover. Istood
there about ten minutes, and no ground
hog appeared. Then 1 began to be tortured
with doubt, and as my arms were aching
with holding the avenging ak in the air so
long, l let it down on the ground and
leaned upon it.
81 have reason to believe that the ground
hog was only waiting for that moment, for
had scarcely unarmed myself, as it were,
when the ground hog popped out of the
hole like flash-and it was a flash, for he
had the string that had tied the blazing
candlewick to the turtle tightly between
his teeth, and the dazzling firebrand was
sailing along after him like a hot air bal
loon. Away the ground hog tore, straight
for my wheat field, where the golden grain
was stacked in plethoric sheaves. In less
than three minutes he had touched the
torch, which was to have lighted him to
his death, to my cleaning wheat stacks,
and that edge of Steuben county saw such
a bonfire as never Lit up its hills before or
since. l believe it was the firm intention
of the ground hog to set fire to my house,
too, but the candlewick exhausted itself
before he could reach the dwelling, and all
I had to remember the genius of the Jer-
seyman by was the ashes of my seasons
wheat crop. gave Il mental quit claim
deed of the clover field to the ground hog
on the spot, and the last heard from there
he was still holding title to the property"
DON'T TRY THE TRAP.
81 don't know much about ground hogs
myself" remarked Thad Ross, the land
lord; my experience with beasts of bur-
den and animals of the forest and field
having been entirely with coons; but had
friend that lived back of Penn Yam who
ran against ground hog once and had an
experience with it that, actually, if a man
was lying, he couldn't tell of one half as
queer. My friend used to say, in telling
about this ground hog experience of his,
that ground hog looked like chuckle-
head, but he's smarter than mustard
plaster. 1 never had the least idea in the
world of trapping for ground hogs, but
every time this friend of mine met me he
seemed to be under the impression that
was about % ~>s~e~ ia t1...t sport, fuI to
always began at me something like this:
Don't you ever trap for ground hogs
In the first place, if you catch your ground
hog you won't know what to do with it,
for the skin is no good and the meat will
spoil soap grease. In the second place, you
will never catch one. You will only risk
your trap if you do try to catch a ground
hog for the chances are that the sly old
cuss will come out and spring the trap by
hitting the pan with a stick or tossing a
stone on it, and then lug it off mile or
two and bury it,
sThen this friend of mine would relate
what happened to him in trying to rid his
farm of a ground hog that had been especial
ly annoying. He had set a trap for it, and
the ground hog had limited to him two or
three times that it didn't want the trap
around his diggings by carrying it away
half a mile and hanging it ON bush. But
my friend thought he knew more what was
best for that ground hog than the patiently
protesting animal did itself, and so kept
right on setting the trap on the very thresh-
old of the ground hogs home. One morn
ing he went to look at the trap, and when
he was within a hundred yards or so of the
hole he saw the ground hog dragging the
trap by it's chain off across the field in the
direction of my friends barn.
"My friend thought he couldn't do any
thing better than just follow along and see
where the grounding intended to bury the
trap, as he supposed that was what the ami
NAL was up to. The ground hog dragged
the trap straight to the barn, and my friend
crept along in it's wake. If the ground hog
saw him it didn't let on, but took the trap
around the corner of the barn. My friend
had valuable young bird dog chained in
kennel behind the barn, and he hurried
on and peeked around the corner of the
building. What should he see but the
ground hog steal up to ono side of the ken
mel and shove the trap quietly in front of
the entrance. Then the ground hog gave
the kennel kick with both hind feet
Out bounced the dog. He set both fore
feet in the trap, and snap she went. The
dog was caught. While his master was re-
leasing the yelping pup the ground hog
strobe away, shaking its sides, my friend
declared, with mirthfulness over the sue
cess of it's little scheme. "-Hammondsport
Cor. New York Sun
The Coffee Tree.
The coffee tree is from six to fourteen
feet high, and the same tree bears for a
number of years The trunk is from twelve
to eighteen inches in diameter, and when