their nests. On larger trees, they gnawed the bark off of most of the
lower branches. This was dangerous but seldom fatal, whereas the gnawing
of mice, near the base of the trunks, was such that in some cases when
complete girdling occurred, it was necessary to use bridge-grafting to
save the trees. This consists of connecting the bark immediately above
the roots with the bark above the girdled portion, so that the tree can
receive and send the food substances it elaborates to its upper and
lower parts.

Rabbits and mice, therefore, had to be dealt with. Of course, one could
go hunting for rabbits and later eat them. This was one task I had my
employees do. I, myself, was unwilling to take an active part in it,
although still intent on saving my trees in spite of my pity for the
little animals. Placing hundreds of cans in the orchard, with a pinch of
poisoned wheat and oat mixture in each, helped to eradicate the mice.
The bait was placed inside the cans to prevent birds from being
poisoned, and the cans were tipped at an angle so that water would not
enter them.

To be absolutely sure of preventing mice damage, one should provide each
tree with a screen guard. I have made about 10,000 screen protectors for
my trees for this purpose. I have also trapped rabbits which we were not
able to shoot and I conceived the idea of painting the traps with white
enamel. When these were set on the snow around those trees which the
rabbits attacked, they worked very successfully. The traps were a size
larger than the common gopher trap, but were not expensive. There are
other ways of catching rabbits or curtailing their activities, but on my
list, shooting comes first, with trapping as a second effective measure.

Squirrels, although they do no damage to the trees themselves, except on