Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 131, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1903 — The Undesirable Muskrat. [ARTICLE]

The Undesirable Muskrat.

crop of northern Jasper is unusually large this year. And thereby hangs a tale, in fact a great many, of great annoyance and injury to the farmers of that region, It comes from the damage these animals work to the ditches of the region where they are numerous They dig big holes from the sides of the ditches back into the banks, and the dirt thus excavated is dumped iously into the bottoms bf the ditches. And not only dumped there but packed down hard, thus making a solid dam. or as the land owners might well say it dam solid, in the bottoms of the ditches. These little beasts being imitators in many ways of their larger and much more respectable relatives the beavers.

The long horizontal holes in the banks, they a'so connect to the outside world by land entrances and into the holes thus made horses and men step inadvertently, and sink tp their thighs. They are truly a serious damage and how to eghnrnkiate them oraaoch reduce their numbers is a very difficult problem. Trappers catch them some, for their 8 or 10 cent skins, but that is not money enough to cause them to be hunted very closely. Minks, skunks and coons are said to be good hnnters of the young rats, but these animals all having much more valuable pelts than the rats, are kept thinned out so much that they do not have much effect on the muskrat crop. But as much of a nuisance as the muskrats are in some places here, they are a much greater and more wide-spread evil in the South There wherever rice is raised they are the bane of the rice growers, and life with them is one long struggle to keep their flooding ditches from destruction by the muskrats. Their skins there are worthless, and fheir , greatest natural 'enemy, the alligator, has been generally exterminated by fool hunters. The extent of this muskrat damage in the rice regions is shown in the case of where in their last state, legislature there 17 anti .muskrat bills pending at one time,