The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1911-07-13
A CHOPPER" CURE
Something Discovered Which Will
Kill the Pests
AN effective REMEDY
M. P. SOmeS, State GrasShOpper
Expert, Tells How the Insects
May be Destroyed


of the visit to Sank Centre OF M. L.
Somes. the expert of the Minnesota
Experiment Station, who spends his
time travelling over the state in the
attempt to eradicate the grasshopper
plague. The insects are unusually
numerous this season and have done
considerable damage at Round Prai-
RE. which is not very far from Sank
Centre. In recent issue of the Fer
gus Falls Daily Journal, Mr.. Somes
is reported as giving some valuable
information relative to the pests and
means of their eradication. The in
terview follows:
ssThere are two or three reasons for
the increase" said Mr.. Somes. sin
the first place. dry years are highly
favorable to their development, and
last year was a very dry year. Then,
again, there are large tracts of waste
land. especially in the Red River Val
lev, which make an ideal breeding
place for the hoppers. The grass
hoppers breed to some extent on wild
prairie land, but an old stubble field
is the place that suits them. The
way to keep down their numbers is to
pillow deep and to pillow late in the sea-
son. and not to allow fields to go to
waste. Their eggs are laid in the
ground in September, and ifdeep plow-
ing is done late in the month, they
are killed off.
"Our work this year has been to
endeayor to find some poison that
will take the place of the hopper dozer
and prove more effective. The hop
per dozer is all right in its place. l
have seen four hopper dozers collect
$50 bushels of young hoppers on a
single farm, but the trouble with it
is, that it is ineffective after the
grasshoppers become large enough to
fly. When they attain that stage,
they fly over it.
ave have been looking for suita-
BILE poison to combat them, and be-
lieve that we have found it in sodium
arsenite. We are not giving out the
fromula yet, but are still experiment.
ing to find out just what proportion
to use so as to kill the grasshopperS
without injuring the grain. The pois-
On is less expensive than Paris green
and is more effective. In order to use
it on a whole farm, a power sprayer
is desirable. Generally speaking, it
will not be necessary to sprinkle a
whole field, as very few fields are en-
tirely affected. The grasshoppers
come in from tie grass lands or waste
lands ad ching the grain fields, and
i'm order to protect against them, all
that will be necessary will be to
sprinkle the outer edges of the fields.
In cast they have already entered
field, they can be killed off by spray
ing it crosswise, checkerboard fashion,
instead of covering the entire tract"
ssDo you consider the grasshopper
situation alarming at the present
time?
'sNo, not exactly alarming. The
grasshoppers, as said, are more num-
erous than usual. They are the ma
tive species, and not the Rocky Noun
tain variety, and they do not migrate
great distances. Some of them, how
ever, will travel perhaps forty miles
in season, and this means that waste
land is menace to very wide area
They feed first in the waste tracts,
but as the weeds and grass there be-
come dry, they move in to the grain
fields in search of greener and more
juicy food. They do the greatest
damage by cutting off the grain just
below the head. AS the wheat and
oats mature and dry, they have ten