Willmar tribune., 1899-07-12
AN ALARMING PROPHECY.
State EntomoIogist Thinks it Likely
That Crasshopper Plague Will
be with Us This Year.

be With Us This Year.
Prof. Otto Lugger, state entomolo-
gist, prophesies for Minnesota during
this summer an invasion of grasshop-
pers. Prof. Lugger has just returned
from the Turtle mountains-vast, roll
ing hills that begin in the northern
part of North Dakota and extend into
Manitoba-and he says that from his
Investigations there he is pretty posi-
tive that the grasshopper pest will
reach into this state.
The Turtle mountains are the great
Matching place for grasshoppers, just
as New Jersey is credited with being
the mother of trusts. And according
to Prof. Lugger the Turtle mountains
are just now in process of turning out
a grasshopper trust, compared with
which the sugar trust and others will
be as an infant.
II turned over square foot of
ground in the Turtle mountains" said
Prof. Lugger recently, land found
tens of thousands of grasshoDper eggs
in the soil. They are just beginning
to hatch, and in an incredibly short
time they will have started south and
east in great armies to devastate the
wheat fields of the Dakotas, Manitoba
and very possibly of Minnesota. The
weather up there has been propitious
for them, for while we have had lots
of rain here, up there it has been dry"
Prof. Lugger offers a timely bit of
advice to farmers. He urges them to
prepare for the grasshoppers by fixing
up hopperdozers, plans and specifca.
tions of which may be had by applying
to him by letter at the State School of
Agriculture. The hopperdozer is in
shape something like mighty dustpan
and is pulled by horses. Tt has tank
containing crude kerosene oil, which
is death to the festive grasshopper.
The moment a grasshopper strikes the
oil he becomes paralyzed, then he
shrivels up and passes away and is no
more. Lengthwise of the back part of
the hopperdozer is stretched piece of
canvas to catch the grasshoppers that
may have jumped oyer the tank of oil.
The grasshoppers strike against the
canvas and fall into the oil. Bushels
of g1asshoppers may be killed in day
in this manner, and Prof. Lugger says
that their corpses are not bad fertil-
izer. The hopperdozer is mounted on
tiny wheels and it is said does but
little harm to growing wheat and other
grains in the course of being carried
over them to catch the hoppers.
Another good plan, Prof. Lugger
says, is to plow a furrow around fields
Of growing grain and saturate it with
kerosene oil. So much do the grass
hoppers detest and fear this, their
great enemy, that they will not venture
across the kerosene douched burrows.
Prof. Lugger, in his spare moments
this summer, has been estigating
the mosquitoes that originate in Min
nesota. While not so large as the
mosquitoes that New Jersey turns out
along with it's trusts, the professor
says they are fully as venomous. He
has classified the Minnesota MOSQUITO
and finds that there are sixteen varie-
ties of him. "Another case of 16 to !, "
said Prof: tugger, facetiously, "when
all the varieties settle on one man."
Prof. Lugger has been searching for
a specimen of the kissing bug that is
just now playing havoc in New York,
but so far he has been unable to To-
cate him.