Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1875 — Grasshoppers in the East. [ARTICLE]

Grasshoppers in the East.

Gerr. Chanzy, this past season, issued a circular to the Generals of division and Prefects in Algeria directing them in dealing with th se public pests to adopt the method which has been successfully employed in Cyprus. This comprises systematic seeking and destroying of the grasshoppers’ eggs and also attacking the crickets on the march. It seems that before becoming full-blown grasshoppers the crickets, about a month after they are hatched, begin to march, and this tney do in large, compact masses for a period averaging some twenty days, during which they never swerve from the line of route once adopted. The people of Cyprus take a band of silk, from, sixty-five to seventy centimeters high and 100 meters long, and this they tie vertically to poles firmly fixed in tbe ground, the upper part being waxed or bordered with oil silk to a width of about ten centimeters and the earth so heaped up under it as to leave no crevice between the silk and the ground. A second band is then setup, so as to form a sort of gallery of gradually diminished width, being at the mouth somewhat wider than the column of crickets, but only five meters wide at the other end, where is a trench five meters long, one and a half wide, and one deep. This forms a trap, or “ system,” several ot which, 100 meters long, can be placed end to end and transported to any point threatened by the invaders. All that has to be done is to wait till the column of crickets ha 3 reached the trench. Then it is covered in with earth and nothing more is seen of the crickets. — Journal of Chemistry.