Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1877 — How they Look in the Shell. [ARTICLE]

How they Look in the Shell.

With sorrow be it Hfttd: Last Week we gave it as our oiduion, upon what we considered us vety good authority, that Craw-ford county would not he troubled at ail with grasshoppers. Wo fear m/w that we were purtiy mistaken. Last week a microscopic investigation of eggs from various localities seemed to indicate tliut they were without vitality, llut Kev. Mr. Murray took a quantity of those same eggs from the farpi of Mr. Rayles, on Lightning Creek, placed them in damp earth, and kept them in a warm plaee iu ids house. At first they seemed tilled with a watery substance, which most people take as an indication that they are rotting, but they soon began to dry and become hard; tiien the outer coating scaled off, leaving only a ttlm-like covering, which was semi-transparent. In this condition, placed under a microscope, they reveal the form of tiie embryo grasshopped Even in that tiny shape, his mouth, eyes and legs were well developed, and we fancied that he looked as hungry as un army mule. Everybody of whom we make inquiries still respond that there Is no danger, as the eggs have rotted; but these developments of the microscope seem to indicate that in some localities, at least, tiie little pest will hatch. Why they are so much later hatching here than in the northern part of the state, while the vegetation here is more forward, we cannot understand, llut if they do hutch in some places, and we fear now that they will, people should not devote alt their time to despair or cuss-words, while the grasshoppers eat the crops. They can be successfully fought, as has been proven iu the western . portion of the stale. While they ure young they can be killed by rolling, and when old enough to move they cun he kept from entering a field by a ditch with a perpendicular side toward the field. Greater success cau be accomplished by unity of action. In providing for helping each other the granges of each neighborhood might do a noble work. — Girard, Kansas, Press.