REPORT OF TEE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTAXIST 225 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



In reply to your inquiry, and as a result of this investigation, I beg to say that 

 I consider the remedy which you have been this year advising, an unqualified success. 

 Through the work of your Department all the known methods of fighting outbreaks 

 of locusts have been tried, and as a result of last year's work special attention has this 

 year been given to the cheap, easy and effective remedy of poisoning with Paris green. 

 The results so far obtained are most satisfactory. If persisted in for another month, 

 excellent and heavy crops will be reaped from many fields, where, otherwise, nothing 

 could have been expected. The efforts of your department in giving instruction and 

 encouraging farmers in the work of exterminating this pest have been all that any 

 Government could do, and I approve most heartily of what has been done. The only 

 suggestion I could have made, would have been to use the hopper dozers, as they were 

 on hand, in some localities earlier in the season, and that possibly a weaker mixture 

 of Paris green than that now used might be experimented with, so as to reduce some- 

 what the cost of the materials. This, however, I believe, is already being experimented 

 with. Your Chief Clerk, Mr. McKellar, is thoroughly well acquainted not only with 

 the different species of locusts likely to develop into crop pests, but also with their 

 habits, and he has also used or tried all the known methods of remedy or prevention. 

 All of these points I have discussed with him in the field during the past three seasons, 

 and I must congratulate you on the great energy he has shown in giving information 

 and help whenever and wherever needed by farmers who were unfortunate enough to 

 have their crops infested by grasshoppers. 



In conclusion, I beg to thank you for this opportunity of visiting the infested 

 localities and seeing the good work which has been done under your orders. I believe 

 the conditions in the districts above mentioned are still sufficiently alarming to require 

 continued effort being put forth of the same nature as you have already adopted, and I 

 most earnestly advise every farmer in all localities where locusts are, or should appear 

 in numbers this autumn, to make a point of ploughing down deeply all stubbles, either 

 before winter or early next spring. 



I have the honour, &c, 



James Fletcher. 



Reference is made above to a somewhat unusual injury by the Rocky Mountain 

 Locust, in which wheat had been eaten down for a considerable space around small 

 sionghs in wheat fields.' Mr. Hugh McKellar writes of this : — 



1 Winnipeg, October 7. — You will remember that we noticed with some surprise 

 the wheat plants eaten off ai'ound sloughs which were full of water at the time we 

 eaw them. This was on Mr. Banting's farm, near Treesbank. Mr. Banting tells me 

 as an explanation of this that, at the time he was ploughing before seeding, grasshop- 

 pers were very abundant in the field, many of them being buried and smothered, but 

 some always escaping and being driven before the plough. These took refuge in the 

 grass of the sloughs in which there was no water at that time. All the land about these 

 eloughs was ploughed, so that the only green place where they could get food was 

 among the grasses in the sloughs. When the grain came through the ground, the 

 grasshoppers at once moved into it, and, rains coming on, the sloughs filled up witli 

 water and all of the grasshoppers were driven out. The result was what we noticed— 

 a complete circle around the sloughs eaten b^re.' 



The following interesting report by Mr. Norman Griddle is inserted in full on 

 account of its scientific and practical value. 



' Aweme, Man., Oct. 25, 1901. — These notes, taken on the spot, will give an idea 

 oi the locust outbreak this summer and how it was controlled in this district : 

 April 28. — First locusts noticed. 



May 15. — Locusts extremely plentiful on abandoned farms. 

 21. — Most of the locusts are out. 



26. — Locusts begin attacking wheat. Nothing has been done to stop them. 

 Several hundred insects to the yard seen. 

 16—15 



