The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1900-12-01
WAR ON FARMERS PESTS
THEIR DISEASES NOW THE SUBJ
JEcT OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY.

Novel scheme For Destroying Grasshop-
pers and Chinchbugs--scattering the
Germs-Tumblers Full of Pestilenee--
How a BacterioIogist Can Win Fortune.
The use of diseased bugs to produce
wholesale pestilenee among their kind
and ultimately effect determination
thereof is an ingenious scheme lately
devised by Uncle Sans scientists.
The idea of enlIsting the dread dis
ease germ into useful service is, in
deed, a novel one Our medico-legal
authorities have considered its dan
ger as a factor in deliberately plotting
homicide. But who has dreamed Of
its possible value as an agency of in
secticide?
The entomologists of the Agricultur-
al Department lately learned how to
concoct several deadly and malignant
bug diseases, how to bottle them for
shipment, how to spread them among
the vast insect fraternity and how to
make infected bugs carry the scourge
to their unsuspecting kind. The pecu-
liar diseases in question are not COM
municable to man; otherwise they
would not be employed, of course.
The discovery of malarial germs in
the MOSQUITO has directed scientific at
tention to bugs as means of trans
mitting contagion. 1t is being discov-
cred that these minute disturbers of
the farmers and househOlder's peace
and happiness have their character
istic distempers, some Of them highly
contagious. To artificially propagate
their baneful germs in incubators,
where the latter are fed and multi
piled. is found to be an easy matter.
GRAssHoPPER DISEASE IN BOTTLES.
Mr.. Grasshopper is one of the chief
victims prescribed by the conspiring
bugOlogist. He has been cutting unbe-
coming capers in our farm lands since
10, these many years, annually filching
thousands of dollars from the indus
trious tiller of the soil. Did willy Mr..
Grasshopper but guess the ghastly
fate awaiting him he would hasten his
kinsmen to pack up, bag and baggage,
and to seek asylums where bugs en-
joy their natural rights and privileges.
The American grasshopper has always
been a healthy bug. In Australia and
South Africa, however, have been dis
covered cousin species which suffer q
hideous disease compared TO which hui
man leprosy Is a means toward pleas
ure and adornment. The unsparinl
bugologists are importing from the
meteorological institute of Cape TowT
phials filed with the pestilence. anC
eighteen such vessels have lately beer
shipped to fourishing grasshoppel
colonies in Mississippi, Nebraska anC
Minnesota. And this is how the new
grasshopper disease is prepared:
Grassnoppers killed by the disease
are collected in large quantities. dried
and ground into meal. This meal ii
mixed with a gelatinous substance ant
put up in the glass phials for ship
ment In these vessels the disease ele
ments multiply until capable of kill
ing manifoldly more grasshopperi
than originally used in the preparation
Of the deadly concoction. On receiv
ing the phials the Yankee farmer ii
instructed to thoroughly mix the con
tents of each with two teaspoonfuls o.
sugar. He adds this dose to three
| fourths of q tumbler of water, previ
ously boiled and allowed to cool. Int,
the tumbler he places several pieces
of cork.