The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-06-19
To POISON Gras.lhonners.

To Poison Grasshoppers.
The grasshopper plague has been
more threatening in the early spring
on this coast this year than ever be-
fore. The Rural Press reproduces an
account of the most successful way OF
combating it in vineyards, as follows
"A mash composed of bran, arsenic,
sugar and water, the proportions
being one part of sugar, one and one
half parts of arsenic and four parts of
bran, to which is added sufficient
quantity of water to make a wet mash.
A common washtubful of this mash is
sufficient for about five acres of grape
vines. Fill the washtub about three
fourths full of bran, add six pounds of
arsenic, and mix it thoroughly with
the bran; put about four pounds of
coarse brown sugar in pail, fill the
pail with water and stir until the
greater part of the sugar is dissolved.
Then pour this sugar-water into the
bran and arsenic, and again fill the
pail with water, and proceed rs before
until all of the sugar in the pail has
been dissolved and added to the bran.
Now stir the latter thoroughly, and
add as much water as is necessary to
thoroughly saturate the mixture, and
it is ready for use.
ts Throw about tablespoonful of
this mixture upon the ground beneath
each vine infested with grasshoppers,
and in a short time the latter will
leave the vine and collect upon the
bran and soon commence feeding
upon it. Those which are upon the
ground six or eight feet from the bran
will soon find their way to it, appar-
entity guided by the sence of smell, as
those to the leeward of the bran have
been observed to come to it from a
greater distance than those which
were upon the side of the bran from
which the wind was blowing. After
eating as much of the bran as they
desire, the grasshoppers usually crawl
of, and many hide themselves be-
meath weeds, clods of earth, etc, and
in few hours will be found to be
dead.
90 The mixture costs from IS to 40
cents per acre of vineyard, including
labor of mixing and applying it. In
orchards the cost will be considerable
less than this One man can apply it
to eight or ten acres of vineyard in a
day.
The addition of sugar to this mix
ture is merely to cause the arsenic to
adhere to the particles of bran, and
not for the purpose of increasing its
attractiveness, since it was found that
the grassheppers were not attracted
to pure sugar. Middlings or shorts
have been,, used in the place of bran,
but are not so desirable, since in dry
ing they assume solid mass which
the grasshoppers cannot eat, whereas
bran in drying never assumes a solid
form.
There is some little difference of
opinion as to the proportion of arsenic
which is best; also as to the advisa
bility of using little middlings to
make the mixture more compact. One
prescription is as follows:
Forty pounds OF bran, 15 pounds of
middlings, gallons cheap syrup, 90
pounds arsenic, mixed soft with water.
Others reduce the arsenic to Is
pounds and others to 10 pounds, with
the same weights of otheringredients.
To enable one to gather up the
remnants of the poison after its work
is done, the practice is adopted of
placing the poison on shingles or
other thin pieces of wood which can be
easily seen and emptied. All such
surplus poison should be deeply
buried in the ground.
Naturally there was much appre-
hension of evil from such free use of
arsenic when the remedy was first put
into practice. Very careful analyses
were made at the university labor
atory of the washings of vine leaves,
Srapes, and of the soil beneath the
vines, and no dangerous amounts of
arsenic were found, nor did there
appear any danger of communicating
wells or other sources of water. OF
course domestic animals and fowls
must be faithfully looked to while the
poison is exposed, and it is chiefly for
their protection that the use of
shing1es in putting out the poison,
instead of throwing it on the ground,
is advocated.