Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-10-13
Their Diseases Now the Subject Of
Scientific Study.
WAGING WAR on FARMERS PESTS
Novel Schemef for Destroying Grass
= hoppers and Chinchbugs.
SCATTERING THE GERMS
Written for The Evening Star,


wholesale pestilence among their kind and
ultimately effect determination thereof is
an ingenious scheme lately devised by
Uncle Sans scientists.
The idea Of enlisting the dread disease
germ into useful service is, indeed, a novel
one. Our medico-legal authorities have con-
sidered its danger as factor in deliber-
ately plotting homicide But who has
dreamed Of its possible value as an agency
of insecticide?
The entomOlogists Of the Agricultural De-
partment lately learned how to concoct sew
eral deadly and malignant bug diseases,
how to bottle them for shipment, how to
spread them among the vast insect frater-
nifty and how to make infected bugs carry
the scourge to their unsuspecting kind. The
peculiar 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 attention to
bugs as a means of transmitting contagion.
1t is being discovered that these minute dis
turbers Of the farmers and householder S
peace and happiness have their character
istic distempers, some of them highly con-
tagious To artificially propagate their
baneful germs in incubators, where the lat
ter are fed and multiplied. is found to be
an easy matter.
GrasshOpper Disease In Bottles.
Mr. Grasshopper is one of the chief VIC
tins prescribed by the conspiring bugolo-
gist. He has been cutting unbecoming ca
pers in our farm lands since 10, these many
years, annually f1lching thousands Of dol
lars from the industrious tiller of the soil,
and well-nigh exhausting the latter lndl-
viduars choicest profanity. Did willy MI
Grasshopper but guess the CHASTITY tate
awaiting him he would hasten his kinsmen
to pack up, bag and baggage and to seek
asylum where bugs enjoy their natural
rights and privileges. The American
grasShopper mas always been a healthy
bug. In Australia and South Africa. how
ever, have been discovered cousin species
which suffer a hideous disease compared to
which human leprosy is a means toward
bugologists are importing from the bac-
THEOLOGICAL institute of Cape Town phials
filed with this pestilence, and eighteen
such vessels have lately been shipped to
sippi, Nebraska and Minnesota. And this
Is how the new grasshopper disease is pre-
pared:
Grasshoppers killed by the disease are
collected in large quantities. dried and
ground into meal This meal is mixed
with a gelatinous substance and put up in
the glass ph1als for shipment. In these YES
sells the disease elements multiply until
capable of killing manifoldIy more grass
hoppers than originally used in the prepara-
ton Of the deadly connection. On receiving
the phials the Yankee farmer is instructed
to thoroughly mix the contents of each with
two teaspoonfuls Of sugar. He adds this
dose to three-fourths Of tumbler Of water
previously boiled and allowed to cool. Into
the tumbler he places several pieces Of
cork.
Scattering the Germs.
After allowing the mixture to stand a
day. during which time the disease has at
tackled the cork and thoroughly contami-
mated the fluid. he dips various and sundry
grasshoppers. alive and kicking, into the
liquid. the moro thus doused being the
merrier for the promised result After be-
Ing vigorously ducked and thereby terrified
box and fed on green plants well moistened
with the same fatal fluid Having been
fed on this poisonus diet for twenty-four
hours, the prisoners are liberated, generally
In the evening hours. Then they hop glee-
fully away to mingle once more with their
anxious friends. Returning to their haunts
they innocently disseminate their conta-
gion far and wide, among all of their kind
cape and marvel at the accounts Of their
terrible experiences And as a result Of
repeated hoppings and gallivantings here
the scourge is spread. Then other grass
hoppers, big and little, soon begin to feel
indisposed and as each surveys himself he
is Mortified to discover that he Is becoming
covered with furry, mouse-colored crust
This increases until eating into his very
vitals Then he gives up his ghost to the
realm where the dead grasshoppers go.
Mr.. Farmer soon appears on the scene,
bears away the corpse together with ali
others he can find, dries them all into q
state Of naturalization, grinds them into
powder and concocts many more tumblers-
full of the liquid pestilence. The contagion
is thus sown to multiply over and over
again. q greater harvest of death being
reaped each time until determination is
complete.
Ground fairly covered with dead grass
hoppers thus killed was seen in Bechuana-
land, South Africa. after an experimental
distribution of the disease there. But the
black natives Of this territory. who eat
grasshoppers, objected to such wholesale
contamination Of their diet.
Fatal to Chinchbugs.
Mr.. Chinchbug Is 1T in very similar
game devised by the enterprising bug
ologists. This ravenous insect yearly costs
the American farmer millions. The most
deadly i'll to which It's flesh is heir is dis
covered to be the white fungus" 1t at
tacks him in much the same manner as
the aforementioned furry growth infests
TOMMY xxr