Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 115, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1919 — ARE NOT REALLY LOCUSTS [ARTICLE]

ARE NOT REALLY LOCUSTS

Unwelcome . Visitors Expected This Year Periodical Cicadas, According to Wisconsin Entomologist. Be scientific —call the “17-year locust” by its right name, the periodical cicada, and no one will worry about tt, II; F. Wilson, entomologist at the Wisconsin experiment station. Cicadas are common insects, but locusts are reminders of the scourge of locusts in biblical days and the grasshoppers. or true locusts, of the early .days in the southwest. Even the orchard-man’s fear, of the effect of this particular cicada is not very well founded, judging from the Information entomologists have about the insect, for other members of the tribe appear each year and injure the shade and orchard trees in exactly the same way. The injury Is the result of the cicada’s laying eggs in the twigs of trees. From the eggs the larvae of the insect hatch. The twig enlarges at that point, growth is Interrupted and sooner or later the twig rots and breaks off. The only treatment is to prune off the parts affected. No preventive methods are considered necessary by either horticulturists or entomologists at the station. Charts of the different broods of the so-called locusts have been prepared by entomologists of the United States department of agriculture, says Mr. Wilson, and they show that the brood expected this year is No. 10. Seventeen years ago it was reported in Wisconsin only in Dane county. The last brood appeared in 1915 and was quit® generallj- scattered over the state.