Wisconsin School of the Air; Afield with Ranger Mac; 3

TIME 9:30. It was guns in school of the air invites you to go a field where the Ranger Mac and today's program boys and girls. Ranger Mack will describe the golden months. Here's your guide Ranger Mack and all boys and girls. October the 1st. You take your summer you take your spring you take your winter and everything. Give me the autumn give me the fall. That is the glorious season of all. Have you read the Helen Hunt Jackson's October bright blue weather yet. Or are you going to wait until we get a typical October day. Maybe you would like to memorize that poem. It is a good poem to have in memory. The hazy blue days of October will bring you greater pleasure when you get out in the open men can repeat over suns and skies in clouds of

June and flowers of June to gather. You cannot rival for one hour October's bright blue weather. I cannot recall an October in my life in which we did not have a majority of the days cleared and crisp with splashes of color on the hardwood trees with the distant hills closed in a night gown of blue while nature the kind mother gradually turns down the wake dims the light and says to her creatures it's time for you my children to start Joe winter's nap. There is something about the fall that gives a person a feeling of confidence and faith in the order of things. You young people may not feel it now but as you grow older and come to understand better what is happening in the

great outdoors this is one of the great feelings that will come to you. It is a great possession to have. Then when things grow or go wrong in your own little way as they do at times I am sure you can go out into nature and as she will help put you right. Gallant nature strong and kind who spares their child never mind. While gazing in wonderment at the redwoods this summer a businessman from Detroit who stood near me said there's something wrong in the training of a man who can stand among these trees and not feel the presence of the divine. William O Douglass of the United States Supreme Court ruled in his recent book called of men and mountains these

words. It is better that a lad face adventure on a stream or lake than risk. The more subtle dangers of our civilization the streams and lakes do not breed juvenile delinquents. It always boasters one spirit these days to journey through the countryside and look upon the few that have been harvested and to know that the harvest has been plentiful. It gives a person a sense of security. At the front or is the man who applies brain and muscle to nature. Most of the people of our country live in cities. They make up about three quarters of our population. They make their living in stores offices industries factories garages driving trucks in the Army and Navy going to school in college

doing the necessary things of this complex civilization but not raising any food from the land. It is all done by the farmer who makes up about one fourth of the entire population. If the farmers fail to produce enough to keep the rest at work and to feed them then the whole of our civilisation would crumble. We catch an idea of the importance of the farmer as we journey through the countryside during October after the crops have been harvested and stored. In carrying on his work the farmer copes with many uncertainties. He has to gamble with these uncertainties. There is always the uncertainty of the weather. Too much rain or too little rain at the wrong time. Storms that are destructive for us too late

in the spring and too early in the fall. There are bacterial fungus and virus diseases of hundreds of kinds and hearty fast growing weeds that would crowd crowd out his crop. But for our eternal vigilance there are insects that challenge his constant attention. You boys and girls who live on farms hear your father talk about these things and know how they worry him. Sometimes his animals get sick. That too is a constant danger. There are some creatures like rats and mites that would eat him out of house and home but for the constant watchfulness and attention to keep them under control. Among these troublesome animals is the Meadow Mouse commonly called of the field mouse. What scamps these

creatures can become. They live such a quiet hidden life that they escape our seeing them. We look across a peaceful meadow little realizing that we are looking on a city teeming with these little rodents. We see you know only the big and the bright. We hear the song of the robin or see the rabbit. We stare out from under our feet. And we think of these as the wild life of the neighborhood. But the fact is most of the life this Earth supports takes place without our knowing or seeing. The first time I really visited a city of Meadow Mice and became aware of how they lived was on a hiking trip with a group of young people. We got

down on our hands and knees and followed those streets and trails and that spread out in every way twisting and turning and interlinking paths used in search for food and paths used for the means of escape from enemies. Sometimes the passageways would lead into burrows under the sod. Then out on the smooth trails with a green roof above and green wall on each side. It was amazing to find the mesh work of branching trails and tunnels and how clean and well worn they were. There must have been 50 to 100 Meadow Mice or more living on each acre of that meadow. Such is their civilization. Where people live together in compact communities one of the

great necessities for health is sanitation and taking care of the refuse of living. We humans have sewers and garbage disposal and keep our streets clean. So do the Meadow Mice. One boy discovered heaps of little pellets which we knew to be the droppings of Meadow Mice. There seemed to be some system for placing the areas for these droppings. The passageways seemed to be entirely free of them. The food in summer is made up mostly of grasses and unripe seeds of grasses and grains. When the seeds of grasses weeds and grain ripen these become their staple food. Other creatures are active all winter. They do not hibernate

and their appetites are increased by the need for food to keep their bodies warm. They never live in barns and outbuildings. When the snow disappear their winter trails can be traced they extend into clover and Timothy into areas where we didn't raw were grown and corn shocks and haystacks left out during the winter are sure to be attacked by these little creatures. When these kinds of foods are scarce the trails lead into Archer's and the trees are often stripped of their bark girdled causing the trees to die. The metal mouse is a cute little fellow not much like the lean sleek house mouse he has chubby

fuzzy well rounded out a short tail that is well haired. It doesn't need a long tail because he doesn't jump. He just trots metal mice are the most numerous of all the rodents in North America and one of the most difficult with which the farmer has to contend. Traps guns poison are not particularly effective in keeping down their numbers. They have large families and have these families four times a year at least if not kept in check. They would not apply to such a degree that they would strip this earth clean of all vegetation. Maybe you have read or heard of the terrible hordes of mice that one time swept over Europe. The best way is to keep them in check is by their natural enemies.

These metal mice are food for every kind of predator our weasels makes. Skunks foxes ours Hawks crows a possum snakes and many others. These little scamps are hidden from our eyes but not from the nostrils and eyes of these birds and animals looking for a delicate morsel of food. This is called natural control. It is nature's method of keeping the numbers of these creatures in check. Hunters who shoot hawks and owls and everything that put in appearance little realize that they are interfering with this natural control. I remember the forestry boy who made a transplant bed of pine trees next to a hay field. He probably looked over that

field in January and everything appeared quite silent and inactive but in the spring of the year he found that Meadow Mice had extended their trails to his patch of trees and had eaten the bark off every one of them. He was a disappointed lad of course but he came to know about Meadow Mice because they touched his life rather closely. There are no appeals but have metal mice. There are just one of the many difficulties with which the farmer has to contend. They seem to be building nests constantly nests for their young nests in winter for their own comfort. If the ground is too damp and the nests get so the mice will build elsewhere. They even build in snow graves. The nests are round globes made of grasses on the

outside and lined with the finest softest material that creatures can find. Bumble bees like these nests when the queen bumblebee comes out of her winter quarters in the spring sea as she searches for a place to raise her brood and while searching about in the grasses she finds a meadow mouse nest ready ready made for her hive. She goes in and the mouse comes bouncing out when rambling about the peels in the spring. If you find one of these nests in the grass it might be well for you to find out before picking it up whether a bumble bee found it before you did. Good bye until next week and may the Great Spirit put sunshine in your heart today and for evermore our Heep much the familiar Indian farewell brings us to the end of another trip afield with Ranger.

Teachers you can find suggestions for the conservation corner project this year on pages 35 through thirty eight. A ranger Emacs manual or in the October issue of the Wisconsin conservation Bulletin. If you haven't ordered your manual yet you are urged to do so at once. Write to the Wisconsin School of the Air Radio Hall Madison 6. The price is 25 cents. Ranger Mack will be back next week to take you on another radio hike down the nature trail. This is the Wisconsin School of the air.