North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["tanis cuff" <tanistanis@hotmail.com>]

Forgot to mention-- they also dug up any of the black-cherry seeds which 
were germinating.  I had worried that batch wasn't any good, but it's small 
comfort to use the mouse method to confirm seed quality.


----Original Message Follows----
From: "tanis cuff" <>
To: nafex
Subject: [NAFEX] mouse story (was Mulching Fruit Trees)
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:54:19 +0000

White-footed mice, that is.  They are 90% or more of what I trap indoors.
The story is, all those nice apple & pear & even the Amelelanchier trays of
seed were beginning to germinate.  I was to be away for a long weekend in
which night freezes were forecast.  I opted to put the trays into a south- &
west-lit room.  I also snapped all the mousetraps, because I didn't want to
return to 3-day dead mice, and I hadn't caught any in 6 weeks anyway.

I returned to trays 50% or more destroyed.  Most of the emerged seedlings
had the tops clipped off, and many dug holes where other seedlings should
have been.  Loss will probably be 75-80%-- BEFORE any losses to seedling
blights.

And one dead white-footed mouse in the one trap I forgot to disable.  I did
not mourn its passing.