DECREASE IN AMOUNT ESTIMATED FOR 1925.

Mr. BUCHANAN. How much did your bureau estimate in this appropriation to the Secretary?

Doctor NELSON. I could not give that offhand.

Mr. HENDERSON. The only figures we have here are the Budget figures.

Mr. ANDERSON. The total amount under this item for the whole thing apparently was $669,000; $652,240 was the final estimate that went in from the bureau.

Doctor NELSON. That is for rodent and predatory animal work, as well as for food habit and fox farming investigations.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is for the whole item?

Doctor NELSON. Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. For the whole item it was $502,240 last year? Doctor NELSON. Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And $652,240 was estimated. That goes from the bureau to the Secretary and from the Secretary to the Budget? Doctor NELSON. That is the way the estimates are put through. Mr. BUCHANAN. The Secretary did not cut this $652,240. Doctor NELSON. I think you have all the figures there.

Mr. ANDERSON. Then the Secretary cut the estimate $150,000. Mr. BUCHANAN. The bureau cut it $150,000 and then the Budget cut it $10,720.

Mr. ANDERSON. I said the Secretary cut it; I think it is fair to say that was under the limitation fixed by the Budget Office.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Under pressure, we will say. Then the Budget further cut it down $10,720.

Doctor NELSON. Below the present appropriation.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The Budget cut the Secretary's recommendation $10,720. Now, let me ask you this: Does this Budget cut interfere with your work any? I mean, could you do it better with it? Doctor NELSON. Well, that is a difficult question to answer. Mr. BUCHANAN. I do not see why.

Doctor NELSON. Of course, you can not do anything better with less to do it with. That is obvious.

Mr. BUCHANAN. You know that some activities have a certain amount that they can use efficiently. Over that amount can not be used efficiently; under that amount is impairing the effectiveness of their work and their organization.

Doctor NELSON. I am not aware of any time that we have had more funds than we could use effectively.

Mr. MAGEE. You could use all that the taxpayers could raise.
Mr. BUCHANAN. No; they could not do that.

Mr. MAGEE. I do not know about that.

Mr. BUCHANAN. You have an organization now?
Dootor NELSON. We have a going organization.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Sometimes a cut interferes materially with that going organization and sometimes it would not.

Doctor NELSON. Well, it is obvious, it seems to me, that reducing the funds for running an organization reduces the activities of the organization correspondingly.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Then, will you have to reduce it by reason of this

cut?

Doctor NELSON. To a certain extent.

Mr. ANDERSON. Where do you get your experienced men for this work? Do you have to take them into training, or do you get green men?

Doctor NELSON. We get them from two sources. In the rodent work we try to get men from the agricultural colleges, or with similar educational qualifications, and train them under competent supervision. The men in charge of the predatory animal must have had experience as hunters and be familiar with the habits of the animals. I wish to mention the splendid morale and enthusiasm with which our men are working. Many of them have had advantageous offers of higher salaries outside, but they are interested in performing a public service of general benefit to the communities where they operate. I think you all appreciate that when a man feels he is doing something worth while for the public good it is a great stimulus. We have a fine lot of men in charge of our field operations.

Mr. ANDERSON. How many animals do you figure were killed last year in this work?

Doctor NELSON. I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000, including those poisoned and trapped. Great numbers are poisoned that are never found, but the sudden decrease of coyotes in a district after a poisoning campaign indicates what has occurred. In a number of cases where we have put out the poison and the stockmen object to spending time hunting the dead animals to save their skins, they say, "Don't bother with the skins: let us put out some more poison.

Mr. MAGEE. There is no doubt that this is a very important work. and it seems to me that one of the important features in the department is, as you have suggested here, to encourage those who are directly interested to cooperate with the Federal Government in the work. But there must be some limit to Federal cooperation. Perhaps we can not supply for this particular work as much money as may be desired, but it seems to me you have had a reasonable increase for this work. I notice in 1912 the appropriation was $35,000, and in 1924 it was $502,240.

Doctor NELSON. In 1912 we had not really taken hold of the job. Mr. MAGEE. Well, you were starting.

Doctor NELSON. I would like to call your attention to the fact that in these Western States, practically all of the States in which we are cooperating, are large areas of public lands; these are commonly wild lands in the mountains, often in the more or less unsettled areas in which the predatory animals and rodents breed in great numbers and from there invade the private lands below. This is the great reason why the farmers and stock growers of the West have insisted that the Government take a hand in the work because really the Government is maintaining the main breeding grounds for these pests.

Mr. MAGEE. It does not seem to me that there ought to be an intimation on the part of the department that the Director of the Budget has been pretty severe in making his recommendation to Congress for this appropriation. It is practically the same as it was last year.

Doctor BALL. Mr. Chairman, the department submitted a supplemental estimate of $125,000 above this estimate that you are now considering, and that supplemental estimate has had no consideration as yet.

Mr. ANDERSON. For this year?

Doctor BALL. Yes, sir.

Doctor NELSON. That is for this work.

Mr. ANDERSON. It is interesting to note that, as a matter of fact, practically no increase that has been put in has been estimated for by the department; it has been put in on the floor.

Mr. BUCHANAN. If it is for another fiscal year it would be for the deficiency committee. Now, another thing. You claim to be making considerable progress in this work, and no doubt you are.

Doctor NELSON. I think that is unquestioned.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Do you have any idea how many years this appropriation will have to continue before the States can take care of it themselves?

Doctor NELSON. That is an absolute impossibility. We have here the problem of these pests which are constantly breeding on the public domain and on private lands, and we have to fight them over these areas. They are also coming in across the border from Mexico and from Canada, and that, combined, with the tremendous area involved, renders it impossible to give any idea of a definite time limit to the predatory or the rodent work. Within five years the gray wolves should be very rare in the United States, and mountain lions greatly reduced in numbers.

Mr. BUCHANAN. The wolf breeds quite rapidly?

Doctor NELSON. Yes; but we have got them reduced already so that in a number of States where there were many wolves they are now reduced to a few individuals.

Mr. MAGEE. Is that the kind of wolf that is ordinarily designated as the timber wolf?

Doctor NELSON. Yes, sir; that is a big wolf. The coyote is everywhere, on the mountains and on the plains. He is extending his range, and he has come into northern Michigan, and the people in western Indiana have asked us to help them fight coyotes there. They are spreading in all directions. They present a difficult problem on account of the enormous territory to be covered in order to get rid of them. The people are with us and are putting up a good deal more money than we are to handle this problem. What we are doing is to furnish the expert assistance to carry out this program of destruction, and we are developing more and more of that. On the Government lands, of course, the Government has to stand most of the total expense, although our cooperators are working with us there.

Mr. BUCHANAN. What I do not understand is this: You had $502,240 this year. You make an estimate of over $100,000 larger than that. The Secretary cuts that back to what you had this year, $502,240. Then the Budget cuts that $10,000, and in spite of that there is a deficiency coming in this year; there will be a deficiency this year. Did I understand Doctor Ball to say that there was consideration of a deficiency at this time?

Doctor BALL. Not a deficiency; that is a supplemental estimate. Mr. ANDERSON. Not for this year?

Doctor BALL. For 1925.

Mr. MAGEE. Your supplemental estimate is for the fiscal year 1925 ? Doctor BALL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BUCHANAN. In other words, the Budget is being called upon. to reconsider its cut and to increase the appropriation?

Doctor BALL. The Budget Bureau furnished us with a certain definite amount under which our budget could be made up, and said that any other items that were considered necessary for the maintenance of the work of the department should be submitted in a supplemental estimate, which was done.

Mr. BUCHANAN. And the Bureau of the Budget still has that supplemental estimate?

Doctor BALL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BUCHANAN. Have they acted on it? Well, I suppose that means they will not allow it.

Doctor NELSON. Had you any further questions on this item? Mr. BUCHANAN. Unless you know something in connection with the work.

RODENT WORK.

Mr. ANDERSON. Let us take up the rodent work.

The

Doctor NELSON. When we took up the rodent work in earnest in 1915 and 1916 the losses were then estimated to be about $300,000,000 from the field rodent and $200,000,000 from the house rat. In the West we are carrying on this work in nearly every instance in cooperation with the extension services of the department and with State organizations-18 States are involved. This campaign is against the crop and range destroying rodents, such as the prairie dogs, several kinds of ground squirrels, the jack rabbits, the pocket gophers, and various other species. Ground squirrels are among the most destructive rodents. They are divided into numerous species. Those in North Dakota are different from those in Oregon and Washington, and these are still different from those in California. Each species needs special study because their habits differ and frequently their tastes as to the bait differ and these peculiarites must be learned before a successful campaign can be carried on. work against rodents is very popular with farmers throughout the country, because these pests are so destructive to crops that when a practical method of relief at a moderate cost is shown, the farmer becomes interested. More than 104,000 farmers and stock growers cooperated in our rodent campaigns during the present fiscal year. In 1923 we used over 1,300 tons of poisoned grain in poison operations and more than 209,000 quarts of bisulphide of carbon. After the rodents are mostly killed by poison on an area and only a few are left bisulphide of carbon is poured into the holes and the gas from this kills the survivors. Since 1916 more than 11,000,000 acres of Federal lands and 105,000,000 of private or State lands have been poisoned for rodents, or a total of over 116,000,000 acres. The estimated saving from the rodent work in 1923, the estimate being based on returns from the farmers and others working in cooperation, amounts to about $8,000,000.

From the returns of farmers and other cooperators each year we have an estimate of the total saving since the beginning of this work in 1916, amounting to about $68,000,000. Poisoning these animals over a vast acreage has resulted in wiping out the majority of the animals. In some areas they are almost all eliminated, and in others their numbers are reduced from 50 to 75 or 80 per cent; the resulting aggregate saving is very great. Where the follow-up campaigns are gone through year after year, you have a perpetuation of that saving

year after year. Over great areas we are actually wearing out these rodents, and there is no question but what eventually the work will result in practically the complete extermination of the prairie dogs in the area in which they now occur. When we began this work, prairie dogs occupied more than 120,000,000 acres. That acreage is being steadily reduced. It is just a question of wearing them out. Of course, the rapidity with which that can be done depends on the funds available and the number of men that can be employed. Rodent pests occupy an enormous territory, and obviously the limitations on what you can do are fixed by the funds available. We are certainly making good progress, and the people who are putting up the cooperative money recognize that progress and are continuing year by year to put up money for this work. One of the most destructive of the rodents is the pocket gopher, a little burrowing animal that is found everywhere from the Mississippi Valley west. He burrows under the ground, lives mainly on roots, and is particularly destructive to fruit trees. A recent letter from Phoenix, Ariz., indicates the effectiveness of the rodent work.

Referring to the cotton rat, which is about half the size of the house rat, it says that two of them cut down over 1,000 citrus seedlings in the Ward nursery north of Phoenix a few nights ago. Mr. Ward placed some of our poisoned grain in the cursery, and the next day the rats were found dead and no further damage occurred. Mr. Ward stated that the 1,000 trees killed were worth more than $1,000, and the balance of the trees will be sold for $1.50 each. The cost of the poison used to kill these two rats was 24 cents.

Mr. MAGEE. That was the work of the gopher?

Doctor NELSON. No; that was done by the cotton rats.
Mr. LEE. How do you poison the grain?

Doctor NELSON. We poison it with a coating of specially prepared strychnine mixed with starch and other material so that it will stick to the outside of the grain. For the pocket gopher, an underground animal, we use chopped bits of potato, or roots of that character, over which strychnine is sprinkled, and when they eat the bait they are killed.

Mr. ANDERSON. Where do you put the bait?

Doctor NELSON. We make a hole down into the runway of the animal and drop the bait in and then cover up the hole. We use a kind of prod and punch down into the tunnel.

Mr. LEE. It is like a mole?

Doctor NELSON. Only like the mole in a certain extent in its underground life.

Mr. ANDERSON. What we call the pocket gopher up in my country is a gopher that has a pocket, and he throws up a whole lot of dirt around him when he digs.

GOPHERS AND FIELD MICE.

Doctor NELSON. That is the animal, and they are enormously destructive. In Kansas a few years ago the State agricultural college made an estimate of the losses in the alfalfa crop owing to their eating the roots of the alfalfa and piling up dirt in the alfalfa fields. They estimated that about 10 per cent of the total alfalfa crop of the State was destroyed out of a total crop that year estimated to be