Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-08-11

time 1t is very small, being about the
size Of gnat, but makes up in number
what IL lacks in size. At certain times
the air would be full of them though
usually they do not fly. Cold drench-
ing rains discourage them, but seem
to have but little effect in diminishing
their numbers or putting stop to
their ravages.
A few years ago, Prof. F. H. Snow
Chancellor of the State University and
one of the greatest students o: Natural
history in the United States if not in
the world, devised remedp which has
practically freed the states from the
pests.
Prof. Snow succeed in introducing
deadly disease among them with great
rapidity and fatal effect. From his
laboratory he sends infected bugs to all
who apply, and the disease d bugs put
into field will soon ca use it 20 be
cleared by killing all the bugs in it.
But very few, half dozen,is necessary
to start the infection. Prof. Snow pro-
ceeded very cautiously for year or
two, and said but little until he proved
his experiment a success; the last legis
lature voted him twenty-five hundred
dollars to carry on his experiments,
and such was tn cir success, that last
summer he had to advertise in papers
all overthe state in order to obtain bugs
enough to carry on his laboratory work.
On the appropriation of twenty-five
hundre dollars saved more than two
hundred thousand dollars to the farm
ers of Kansas. If farmer wants dis
eased chinch bugs, all he has to do is to
send Prof. Snow box of live healthy
ones, and receive the infected ones in
return. Hethen puts heinfes!ed bugs
in his field, and goes about his business,
the bugs do the rest.
There is no one who has ever lived
in Kansas who has done so much for
the agricultural interest of the state.
At the head of the great university,
which would exhaust the energies and
consume all the time of an ordinary
man, he finds time to oversee the
multitudinous details of the National
History department. at the head of
which he was for nearly twenty-five
years, to go on lecturing tours in all
parts of the state, to answer hundreds of
letters concerning scientific and other
subjects, to respond to call from the
farming community to investigate
some threatened evil or some new pest,
and to do, do not know what else be.
sides, with side trips to Colorado, to
Boston and New York, and to other
places to fill in the spare time.
If Kansas is treated with an invasion
of grasshoppers from Colorado, Prof.
Snow is sent for at once; if some new
disease threatens tn wheat, Prof. Snow
isay gain summoned; if there is farmer
convention,-not poIitical-the pro-
ceedings are not considered success
unless Prof. Snow lectures or at least
talks before the farmers assembled; he
must be on hand at all state teachers
associations, must lecture before coun-
try teachers conventi nns and in high
school lecture courses etc. To enumer-
ate all he does would require more
space than is at my command, nor
could I even name them if I had the
space. Under his care the university
has prospered as never before in its
history, and its influence is becoming
moro wide spread every day.
1t is matter ofgreat pride to Kan
sas that it can claim such man as a
citizen, and to hold him in spite of the
many efforts of other states to try to
tempt him to leave. 1t would
take more than money however TO in
duce him to leave the university in the
service of which he has spent more
than quarter of century, and at the
head of which he will doubtless spend
another twenty-five years.
did not intend to write as much
about Prof. Snow but it grew out of
the subject 1 was writing upon and I
have no apologies to offer.
G. L. E.