The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-13

among the local statesmen. Amateur statlsticians became interested in the subject, Based on careful estimates from the average Woodchuck habitat census of the busy rodent was taken in the state, and the number was found to be, on an inside total estimate four hundred and seventy thousand in round number, although actual figures made the number 4S2,960.
 It was figured by a New Hampshire student of economies that one healthy Woodchuck-and there are no unrealthy ones-Would consume, between May l and September i of any year, five hun | dred pounds of red clover alone, first | and second crops. It was easy then to demonstrate by figures, which are pro- verbal for their arbitrary fealthy to the truth that if one woodchuck confisca- ted five hundred pounds of lover in a season four hundred and seventy thou sand woodchucks would do the same to | two hundred and thirty-ive million pounds, the equivalent of 1T, ,500 tons. t the rock-bottom price of six dollars ] ton it was shown that the annual trib- ute levied on the hay fields of the pa- tient New Hampshire husbandman amounted to the snug sum of seven 1 hundred and five thousand dollars a year.
 There was no apparent way of get ting around those figures, and the | woodchuck at once became the vital is 1 sue in New Hampshire politics. The l farmers declared that the state must come to their aid by placing a substan- | tial bounty on woodchuck scalps, so that interest in removing the burrowing l clover stealer might be so quickened | that suppression if not extinction of the wary animal would result. Others held that it was the farmers duty to rid his | farm of it's pests himself-"skin his own woodchucks," as one contentious lay man expressed it-and not depend on the people at large to do it for him. l Then there arose the Bounty and the l Anti-B Bounty on Woodchucks parties in local politics, and, it is hardly necessa- ry to say, the anti-bounty men were routed.
 At the first session of the legislature after the woodchuck issue came into the affairs of the state the suppression l of the woodchuck was the paramount question for consideration. A bill fix ing a bounty of twenty-five cents 0 head on woodchucks was introduced
 but compromise bill, by which the price to be placed on the head of the woodchuck was made ten cents, was ac- cepted and passed. Since then the re- turns from the various county treasu- ries have shown that the average annu- al kill of woodchucks in New Hamp- shire on which bounties ave been paid l Ia h,1n5raI O nd tyUanfu-fiUa thOll-
 sand. This is goodly number but it
 nevertheless leaves a good working woodchuck majority of three hundred and forty-five year to contest with
 the farmer for his crops.
 And that is about as near as they
 will ever come to putting down the | woodchuck," says an Orange county 1 (N. Y.) farmer, who annually removes
 many of the pestiferous little beasts
 from his farm, although New York
 state does not take such paternal care
 of her husbandmen as to pay them for
 clearing their own farms of wood-
 chucks. Ut isn't an easy matter, even,
 to keep the Woodchucks number with
 in ordinary bounds when these animals
 once coloniZe on your farm Besides
 the protection their willy and cautious
 nature assures to them, the female
 woodchuck brings forth two families of
 young year, of from six to eight in
 each family. The young mature quick
 1y and become parents before the first year. Thus two woodchucks starting in
 one year may have seventy or more de-
 scendants to begin the second year s
 campaign"
 The woodchuck, is shy and suspicious
 constantly on the watch for possible
 danger, and quick to flee from even the
 distant approach of man. Any one whc
 knows woodchucss knows that there is
 no animal more alert, keener of scent or more acute of hearing than this busy
 burrower. A man with gun cannot get within range of woodchucls feed
 ing in a field or posted at the entrance
 to their burrows. They are shy of a
 gun, and know one as far away as a
 crow does. The woodchuck rarely goes
 more than ten yards from its burrow tc
 feed. and with every mouthful it crops
 it rises on it's launches and scans the
 surroundings on every side, holding its
 head high in the air and sampling every
 scent that is borne to it. At the frs : intimation of danger it receives, either ] by sight or scent, the woodchuck scam pers to it's hole and disappears into il with a chuckle, to remain there, witt , the ip of it's nose just far enough ou r to keep 1t informed of what is going on as long as there is the least suspicion , of danger still lurking near.
 } Sussex county, N. J., dwellers among t woodchucks declare that over there th woodchucks post sentinels to watch tn different approaches by which dange may ome the sentinels signalling by t sharp whistle if danger does come tha way. There is perhaps no better apple jack made anywhere than in the wood s chuck district of Sussex county. Alp
 plejack is largely the tipple of that sa
 lubrious region. It is a delight to tn
 palate, but if dallied with unwisely i
 coaxes strange sounds into the heat I and fashions odd sights to the eye.
 The only way to insure one's gettiny a woodchuck with gun is to hide be l hind a fence, or rock, or bush, within easy gunshot, and wait until the anima 3 is satisfied that it can safely come ou l to feed A rifle is the surest gun to xii
 a woodchuck with, and the bullet mus I hit the animal in some vital spot, for i t is most tenacious of life, and must b 3 terribly wounded If it is unable to ge d into it's burrow before the gunner ca e intercept 1t. A man is never sure of hi e woodchuck until it falls dead at hi