The Courier. (Genoa, Nev.) 1899-1904, 1904-01-01
How to Fight Grasshoppers.

culture and stOck-ralslng, by invading
the alfalfa fields.
They usally do the greatest damage
to the second crop of alfalfa for, though
they hatch in the spring from eggs
laid the previous autumn, the young
choppers do very little apparent in
jury to the first crop. As soon as it is
cut, however, they are deprived OF
their abundant supply of green food.
The few leaves remaining are quickly
destroyed, and with them every OPEN
ing bud and newly-formed leaf. The Sec
ond crop cannot make start for the
new growth is eaten as fast as it APP
pears. The injured fields sometimes
look as bare and brown in midsummer
as they are early in spring. In many
cases this means the loss of thousands
of dollars worth of hay
In Nevada very little has been done
toward preventing this loss; but in
Minnesota and Nebraska grasshoppers
are fought systematically with con-
siderable success. Before we can adopt
means for holding this pest in check,
we must understand something of its
life history in the alfalfa fields.
Every year great numbers of grass
hoppers gather along ditch banks and
road sides, along little used roads
through the fields. In such places as
these females lay their eggs, thrusting
the abdomen an inch or more deep in
the soil, and laying a pod or mass of
oblong light yellow eggs. The eggs in
the frozen soil hatch when the ground
grows warm in spring. The young
hoppers make their way to the sur
face and at once begin feeding on the
tender green leaves and grass.
AS the newly Matched young are
small and weak it is difficult matter
for them to make their way to the sur
face. If the eggs can be buried few
inches in the soil this becomes inn
possible.
FLOWING.
For this reason it is customary in
parts of Nebraska and Minnesota to
bury the grasshopper eggs by plowing
them into the soil. Turned under by
the pillow the eggs are buried so deep
ly that when they hatch the young
Choppers cannot make their way to
the surface This is practical and
successful way of destroying grass
hoppers where it can be applied.
Ditch banks, roads through the fields
and waste places near the fields should
be examined for eggs late in the au-
tumn. An inch of surface soil should
be sliced off with a shovel here and
there. If the ground is full of eggs it
should be plowed before winter. The
rain and snow will then cake the sur
face soil and pack it so hard that the
newly Matched grasshoppers can
scarcely make their way through.
Spring blowing is not so effective
because the soil does not have time to
settle and pack before the grasshop-
pers eggs begin to hatch.
DIsKING AND NARROWING.
AS vast numbers of these inse cts
hatch out in the fields themselves
where blowing is out of the question,
narrowing or disking must be resort
ed to in such situations. narrowing
breaks up the clusters of eggs, buries
many of them, brushes some and scat
tiers the rest through the soil. 1t is
not so effective as blowing because it
does not bury the eggs deep enough
to destroy them all. 1t can be done
either in autumn or in spring. These
methods of destroying the eggs are
our most effective means of hold
ing the grasshoppers in check. Other
methods will be discussed in a later
bulletin; among them burning, poison
ing and the use of hopper-dozers which
destroy half-grown grasshoppers by
means of kerosene and crude petrole-
UNI.
Flowing and narrowing are the best
methods known. The work should be
done early in the winter before the
ground is frozen or else as early in
spring as is possible.
SAMUEL B. DoTEN,
Nevada State University.
How's This.