Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1901 — WAR ON THE HOPPERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WAR ON THE HOPPERS

THE GOVERNMENT PREPARES TO FIGHT THE INSECTS. Peat of the Great Farming Regions of the Weat and Southwe»t to Be Battled Against by Plague—Cause Great Annual Damage. That the United States’ great farming regions in the West and Southwest may be rid of a pest which annually threatens the crops with destruction and causes an enormous financial loss, the government has adopted a new and extraordinary means. Grasshoppers exist in untold numbers in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska, but the situation in Southern Texas seems to lie worse than anywhere else. To relieve the distress occasioned by the grasshoppers, government ontomologists„are putting up in bottles disease germs of a fungous kind, deadly to grasshoppers, and is sending them to parts of the country where the damage threatens to be particularly severe. The fungus is obtained from South Africa, where it has been used with great success recently, vast armies of grasshoppers being literally wiped out by- it. It is propagated artificially by applying a bit of it to a sterilized preparation of gelatine and blood serum, on which the germs multiply rapidly. Thus prepared, the “cultures” are sent nut in glS&s tubes, corked with absorbent cotton and sealed with red wax, each one being enclosed in a pasteboafd cylinder. Directions for use accompany the package. In Colorado last summer there was an outbreak of fungus disease among grasshoppers, and quantities of the dead insects were shipped to Washington and utilized here for making “cul-, tures.” A whitish, thread-like growth

on the bodies of the victims furnished the requisite germs. These “cultures” have been distributed during the present year in Colorado, experimentally, while the disease from South Africa is being tried in Texas. Infecting the Grasshoppers. On receiving a bottle of the fungus, the farmer is directed, by an accompanying printed slip, to put a number of live grasshoppers in a wooden box, together with a portion of the germ material. They will quickly become infected, when he may liberate all but half a dozen or so. These, when dead, will serve to communicate the disease to other living grasshoppers, placed in the box for that purpose. As fast as they are infected the “hoppers” are to be set free in the fields to distribute the plague among their fellows. The grasshopper is one of the most serious problems encountered by the farmer in the West. Owing to the settlement of great areas which formerly were its permanent breeding grounds, producing regular and enormous crops of the voracious pests every year, the insect no longer appears in those mighty swarms that used to arrive like devastating armies and devour everything green. But even nowadays not a season passes that the “hoppers” do not appear in alarming numbers in some parts of the country, destroying the crops and bringing great loss or even ruin to the helpless agriculturist: The “hoppers” sow their eggs, planting on one season those which are to be hatched the next. The female drills a hole in the ground with the horny tip of her abdomen, and in this she lays about 20 eggs, which are bound together in a mass with mucus excreted by the mother insect. The burrow is filled up with mucus, which makes it watertight. Fiszhting: the Pest, Now the farmer’s best ohance is to destroy the unhatched eggs, and this he tries to do in various ways, the most effective perhaps being to slice off an inch of the top soil, dry it and pass it through sieves to separate the egg masses, which are buried in deep pits. In the wheat growing regions burning

machines, which arc open gates on ruw ners, filled with lighted pitch pine,' are drawn by horses across the fields. Another method consists in digging pits, into which the swarms are driven, with the help of widespread wings of canvas stretched on sticks. The eggs are enveloped in tough little capsules, not easily broken by pressure between thumb and finger, but when ready to hatch the coat of the ovum is dissolved and releases the insect. When new born the young grasshopper is covered with a sort of veil, which presently splits along the back and is kicked off behind. So long as there is plenty of food in the neighborhood he does not move about much, but when the available' provender is exhausted he starts out to look for another spot. It is in this way that the great migrations are begun, an army of grasshoppers on the march being often as much as a mile wide. They cover the ground densely, devouring as they go all grass, grain and garden truck. Sometimes two such armies cross each other, but each keeps right along in its own course. Some grasshoppers are among the most beautiful insects in the world, with wings resembling in beauty and delicacy of hues the petals of flowers—pink, green, blue and otherwise tinted with many variations. There are some of huge size, which have a spread of nine inches or more from wing tip to wing tip. Anybody who will examine a grasshopper cannot fail to admire the beauty of its construction, and particularly of the armor in which it is clad, though it is a peacable creature and by no means inclined to combat.

LARGEST KNOWN SPECIES OF GRASSHOPPERS. (The picture shows him one-half life size.)