Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1899-01-05
DON'T KILL THE MOLE,
The Popular Notion on the Subject All
Wrong, Says This Naturalist

Nronsy says ms naturalist.
81 had a letter from q friend of
mine while ago, said the naturalist.
asking me how he should go to work
to destroy ground moles. Those
timld and mysterious little animals
had begun to show their presence in
in his garden, and, as he complained,
were destroying it. They are eating
my peas, he said, and the roots of
plants and young trees. l wrote back
and told him that the moles were
doing nothing of the sort, and to let
them alone.
1T seems strange to me that this
idea that moles are destructive to
growing things should be so common.
Ii any one wants to find out what an
error 1t is, let him trap few moles,
and investigate after the manner of
the late G. V. Riley, the greatest en-
tomologist the country has produced.
He took large dry goods box, filled
1t with garden soil, a4d in it put six
moles. He added motley collection
OF grubworms, cutworms, fshworms,
beetles, etc. He also inserted from
day to day pieces of vegetables of diff
ferent kinds, keeping a record of
everything that went into The box.
All decayed parts of vegetables were
removed from time to time. At the
end of six weeks be took his moles
out in fine condition and turned them
loose and then went to sitting the
soil. Every worm, big and little, was
gone, and every piece of vegetable
food was recovered or accounted for,
and not one piece of the latter had
been touched by the mole. Mr.. Riley
had recently returned from France,
where there Wa p fine Of five francs
for killing a mo
after ! hea of this sxperiment
of Professor Riley, J. 81 ,-,,,,s q ,o,..,f.,I
observer of the mole and its ,,ts
When have piece OF ground L.
tested with cutworns OF grubworms
1 have caught moles and thrned them
loose, and if not too much disturbed
they will soon clear it of worms, and
have never seen any vegetable mat
ter of any kind eaten by them. They
feed entirely upon animal food. They
sometimes do slight damage by lift
ing plant so that its roots die from
lack of moisture. Ny correspondent S
pea vines were probably eaten by cut
worms, and the mole was after the
worm, and ten to one he got him.
Field mice often do damage in garden
and field by eating the seed crop, and
careless farmers ascribe it all to the
moles.
Sometimes in small garden moles
become. so common that they have
to be removed, or part of them. A
mole can take a hint without being
knocked in the head. He is nobodys
food. If you want him TO move his
quarters, keep his runway trampled
down from day to day except the last
five or six feet. The time to do this
is when he is working. He is very
methodical. He burrows in the morn
ing from 10 to II and from to in
the afternoon. In hot weather he
works soon after daylight.
"When any one sees his field or his
garden marked by the tumult of
ground moles, he may know at once
that subterranean pest in the shape
of grub or beetle or worm is there
to feed on the roots of the crop that
may be planted there, and that the
mole is there to feed on the grub or
the beetle or the worm Let the mole
alone. He is there to do you good
turn. If you kill him or drive him
away you are spurning a friend in
deed. New York Sun.