The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-06-14
Within 5gle
WON'T BE FOOLED WITH.
so SAYS FAlRCHlLD HOUSE CIRCLE
ABOUT GROUND HOGS.

nemDeTS OE the NAFcAe relate Ihe1r Elk
periences with the Smart AnimaI-It
Don't Seem to Pay to Interfere with
Him-Instances Where He Got Even.
The subject of ground hog came up TO,
dissection at meeting of the FairchiIC
house circle the other evening, said Judge
Ben Wright: Il had a little experience nv.
self with ground hog when | 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 a clover field OF
mine and was four story nuisance with a
mansard roof. He defed all my efforts to
induce him to die or leave the country. |
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 plan to ameliorate
the condition of farms suffering from
ground hog. He had found that by catch
ing turtle and tying a 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 its 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.
Thu FIRE BALL TREATMENT.
After reading the item / felt | had that
big clover stealing pest OF mine at my mer-
cy at last | could hardly wait till morn
ing, 1 wanted t. 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 s
o'clock had the whole thing fixed, and,
arming myself with in 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 a 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 | braced
myself at the side of the hole, raised my ak
in the air, and smiled grimly as / thought
of the vengeance was soon to wreak on the
destroyer of my peace and clover. | stood
there about ten minutes, and no ground
hog appeared. Then | 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.
Il have reason to believe that the ground
hog was only waiting for that moment, for
l 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 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, 10 my cleaning wheat stacks,
snd that edge of Steuber county saw such
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,
200, but the candlewick exhausted itself
before he could reach the dwelling, and all
l had to remember the genius of the Jer-
seyman by was the ashes of my seasons
wheat crop. gave a mental quit claim
deed of the clover fieId to the ground hog
on the spot, and the last heard from there
DON'T TRY THE TRAP.
'I don't know much about ground hogs
remarked Thad Ross, the land
lord; my experience with beasts of bur
den and animals Of the forest and field
having heen entirely with coons; but 1 had
a friend that lived back of Penn Yam who
ran against a ground hog once and had an
with it that, actually, if man
L I.
queer My friend used TO say, in telling
about this ground hog experience of his,
that ground hog looked like a chuckle-
head, but he's smarter than mustard
plaster | 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 TO engage IN that sport, for he
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 ii,
COR the skin is no good and the meat will
spoil soap grease. In the second place, you
viii never catch one You VIII 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 a mile or
two and bury it
Then this friend of mine would relate
what happened to him in trying TO rid his
farm of 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 n 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 he trap on the very thresh-
old Of the ground hog ) home. One morn
ing be went 10 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 its chain off across the field in the
direction OF my friends barn.
Ny friend thought he couldn't do any
thing better than just follow along and see
- - here the gro;:-5aoE intended to bury the
trap. as he supposed that was what the ami