MODERN WARFARE AGAINST GRASSHOPPERS 467 



those endeavoring to raise crops in districts where there are hundreds 

 of acres of virgin land untouched by the plow, or large tracts of 

 "reverted" land, land which though once cropped has been allowed 

 to revert to natural conditions, may well look with apprehension upon 

 the accumulating hordes of what they used to regard as harmless 

 grasshoppers in contradistinction to the much-dreaded Eocky Mountain 

 locust. It is such localities that offer ideal conditions for the increase 

 of this insect. Evidently, therefore, farmers living on the frontier of 

 agricultural areas next to new or reverted land, the pioneer farmers, as 

 it were, are the ones to suffer most heavily. Given such localities and 

 dry weather, the absence of heavy, killing rains, when the young hopper 

 is just out of the egg for a succession of seasons, and the agriculturist 

 sees acres of wheat, oats, rye, barley and flax rendered so nearly worth- 

 less that they do not warrant the labor of harvesting. During 1909, 

 1910 and 1911 several species of grasshoppers have been increasing to 

 such an extent in a number of states in the middle west that special 

 remedial measures have been necessarily sought. A few of these states 

 have created grasshopper laws, aimed at the obligatory destruction of 

 egg clusters in fall or spring by compulsory plowing. These laws, 

 however, are, in most instances, notoriously ineffective, and some prac- 

 tical method or methods of control within the reach of the average 

 farmer had to be discovered. Manifestly, these measures of relief must 

 be such as to enable the individual farmer to protect himself, no matter 

 how unfavorable the conditions surrounding him. It was to solve this 

 problem, as far as lay in his power, that the writer and his staff have 

 applied themselves for two years, and it is believed that we have found 

 a fairly sure means of crop protection if our farmers will follow direc- 

 tions emanating from the Experiment Station. While our experience 

 has been confined necessarily to Minnesota, these remedies are equally 

 applicable in other states, where the same or worse conditions prevail. 

 In fact, we would not convey the impression that Minnesota is a grass- 

 hopper-stricken state; far from it, for a very large proportion of our 

 agricultural land, most of it, in fact, is relatively free from this pest, 

 but we seek to protect from loss those individual farmers, pioneer 

 farmers we have called them, who live in the western quarter of the 

 state in the neighborhood of vast tracts of unused lands, property held 

 by speculators, unsalable tracts, acres held by individual farmers who 

 have more land than they can handle, land occasionally rented, and 

 between rentals lying idle, a menace to adjoining properties of indus- 

 trious citizens doing their best to get a living from the soil. Mani- 

 festly fall plowing, thus burying the eggs deeply, will not be of material 

 benefit to these men, for the hungry hordes will pour in upon their 

 tender grain from the adjoining fields, whose owners, not easily reached 

 by our grasshopper laws, are indifferent. True, such a farmer can and 



