NOTES ON THE WINGLESS GRASSHOPPER. 425 



When the grasshoppers climb over buildings, or up trees, to reach a 

 garden, a strip of tin tacked horizontally around the building or tree, 

 and of sufficient width, and at any distance from the ground, will form 

 a protection against them. 



Where tin cannot be procured, and the soil is crumbly, the follow- 

 ing plan will succeed, in a great measure, in preventing the grass- 

 hopper from entering fields, and at the same time occasion the destruc- 

 tion of great numbers of them, viz: Dig a ditch around the field about 

 eighteen inches wide and two feet deep, shelving inwards towards the 

 field, from the upper inside edge to the bottom, and sink holes in the 

 bottom of the ditch about two feet deep, and at intervals of every few 

 yards. The grasshoppers get into the ditch in endeavoring to enter 

 the field, and fail, on account of its crumbling condition, to ascend the 

 inside inclined surface, and eventually collect in great numbers in the 

 holes in the bottom of the ditch and die. If there are roots in the 

 soil, this plan will not answer, as they readily climb up these, and 

 thus get out of the ditch. Many enter the fields notwithstanding this 

 obstacle, but bushels of them collect in the ditch and holes in the 

 bottom, where they can easily be destroyed by rammers and paddles, 

 though the majority that get in the holes die from the pressure of the 

 superincumbent mass. This plan, though greatly inferior to the tin 

 protective, will save most of a crop, and can be readily employed in 

 some localities, and when materials for the other cannot be procured, 

 a ditch of swift running water also affords a good protection, though 

 many cross it. 



Fort Crook, California, November, 1860. 



