The Jackrabbit Plague of Fruitvale
Farmers in the Fruitvale district are calling for organized rabbit drives as pests devastate alfalfa fields.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Many farmers in the Fruitvale district are having to abandon their fields of alfalfa on account of the ravages of jackrabbits. Three farmers, Fred Zercher, S. P. McDaniel and W. Anschutz, report that they will not cut alfalfa in several of their fields, and that their neighbors, in many cases, are of the same mind, as the alfalfa has been mowed so well by these pests that there is little left for the machines to take hold of. Something will have to be done about this situation at once or the county will be so overrun with the vermin that all crops planted in this vicinity will be in danger. It seems to be the general opinion hereabouts that the rabbit drive of a few weeks ago should be repeated at once. To show what numbers these rabbits have attained, one Fruitvale farmer went out and in one evening killed a hundred around his ten-acre field.
“The farmers must get together and DO IT NOW.”
Agricultural pest management remains a perennial struggle for Tri-Cities growers. While modern mechanical controls have replaced the community 'rabbit drives' of 1914, the anxiety over losing entire crops to infestations mirrors contemporary concerns about invasive species in the Columbia Basin.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.