Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-01-02
WAR ON FARMERS PESTS
THEIR DISEASES NOW THE SUB.
JEcT OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY.

pers and Chinchbugs-Scattering the
Germs Tumblers Full of PestiIence-
How Bacteriologist Can Win Fortune.
The use Of diseased bugs to produce
wholesale pestlence 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 in,o 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 AgricuHur
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 a 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 artifcially propagate
their baneful germs in incubators,
where the latter are fed and multi
piled. is found to be an easy matter.
aRAssHoPPER DISEASE IN BOTTLES.
Mr.. Grasshopper is one of the chief
victims prescribed by the conspirng
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 healthy bug. In Australia and
South Africa, however, have been dis
covered cousin species which suffer a
hideous disease compared to which hui
man leprosy is means toward pleas
ure and adornment. The unsparing
bugologists are importing from the
meteorological institute of Cape Town
phials filed with the pestilence, and
eighteen such vessels have lately been
shipped to flourishing grasshopper
colonies in Mississippi, Nebraska and
Minnesota. And this is how the new
grasshopper disease is prepared:
Grasshoppers killed by the disease
are collected in large quantities. dried
and ground into a meal. This meal is
mixed with gelatinous substance and
put up in the glass phials for ship
ment In these vessels the disease ele-
ments multiply until capable of kill
ing manifoldly more grasshoppers
than originally used in the preparation
OF the deadly concoction. On receiv-
ing the phials the Yankee farmer is
instructed to thoroughly mix the con-
tents of each with two teaspoonfuls of
sugar. He adds this dose to three
fourths of a tumbler of water, previ-
ously boiled and allowed to cool Into
the tumbler he places several pieces
of cork.
SCATTERING THE GERMS.
After allowing the mixture to stand
day, during which time the disease
has attacked the cork and thoroughly
contaminated the fluid, he dips various
and sundry grasshoppers, alive and
kicking, into the liquid, the more thus
doused being the merrier for the prom
ised result. After being vigorously
ducked and thereby terrified the pro-
testing victims are imprisoned in a
box and fed on green plants well
moistened with the same fatal liquid.
Having been fed on this poisonous diet
for twenty-four hours, the prisoners
are liberated, generally in the evening
hours. Then they hop gleefully away
to mingle once more with their anxious
friends. Returning to their haunts
they innocently disseminate their con-
tagion far and wide, among all of their
KIND which approach to rejoice at their
safe escape and marvel at the accounts
of their terrible experiences. And as
result of repeated hoppings and gal
Hvantings here and there, from one
green field to another, the scourge is
spread. Then other grasshoppers. big
and little, soon begin to feel indis.
posed and as each surveys himself he
is Mortified to discover that he is be-
coming covered with a 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 all others he can find, dries them
all into state of mummification, grinds