Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1884 — The March of the Prairie Dog. [ARTICLE]

The March of the Prairie Dog.

The prairie dog is a standing threat against the future prosperity of the grazing districts of the State. Draw a line from the Red River, south to the Colorado, so as to run about the western lines of Throckmorton, Shackelford, Callahan, and Coleman Counties, and you mark the front of the greatest immigration army ever dreamed of by man. From this line west 250 miles every square mile is infested by these devouring pests. They thickly inhabit a section of country 200 miles long and 250 miles wide. The advent of the white man into this country has but increased their numbers, as man h*s destroyed the wolves, badgers, rattlesnakes, panthers, and other animals which prey upon the prairie dog. They eat the grass in summer and the grass roots in winter, and the consequence is that what was but a few years ago the finest grazing region in America is fast becoming a verdureless desert. Unlike all- other animals in America, the prairie dog is migrating, not West, but East Only a year or two ago Jus eastern line was about the western line of this county. In a short time he has advanced his frontier east about five miles into Shackelford, Throckmorton, and the other counties lying north and south of Shackelford. Unless checked he will soon ravage all the mesquite grass land in the State, and will then descend in countless hosts upon the black, waxy farming land of Tarrant, Dallas, Collin, and the other counties east of us. It is no exaggeration to say that $10,000,000 does not exceed the value of the grass annually consumed by the prairie dogs in Northwest Texas. Could they be destroyed instantly, as by a stroke of lightning, the price of land in all the regions described would advance IUO per cent, as soon as the fact was known.— 'Albany Newt.