S. Department of Agriculture, I
studied the material given about pocket gophers and their habits. I then
began their systematic eradication, using about twelve steel muskrat
traps. I succeeded in trapping, in one season, over thirty of them, at a
time when they were so prolific and their holes so numerous that I could
not drive a horse through the orchard without danger of breaking one of
its legs. I also used poisoned grains and gases but I do not recommend
them. Trapping is the only method in which one obtains actual evidence
of elimination. It took me many years to force the gophers out of my
orchards and I still must set traps every fall, during September and
October when they are most active. Their habits are such that they do
most of their tunnelling in the early fall months, before frost, during
which time they expose and isolate the roots on which they intend to
feed during the winter months when the ground is so hard that they
cannot burrow further. This period is when they are most easily trapped.
It was with the idea of establishing a balance of nature against these
animals that I conceived the idea of importing bull snakes. Almost
everyone has heard of the bull snake, but its name is a poor one, for it
has the wrong connotation.
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