GRASS-HOPPER CONTROL 



139 



Mr. E. J. Rice, of Ft. MadLson, was one of the men who gave the 

 hopper-catcher a thorough trial. He caught and dried 1,400 pounds 

 of grass-hoppers. A bulletin suggested sacking the hoppers for 

 twenty-four hours in order to kill them. Mr. Rice writes, "It takes 

 three or four days to kill the hoppers by sacking them, then plenty 

 of nerve to empty the sack." After first using a cement feeding floor 

 unsuccessfully, Mr. Rice succeeded in drying the hoppers on an open 

 spot in a pasture field at some distance from the house. Dried grass- 

 hoppers are reported to contain 75 per cent protein. The writer 

 has been using some of the hoppers prepared by Mr. Rice as winter 

 chicken feed, and has secured a high egg-laying record. Chickens 

 eat the dried hoppers greedily. The plan followed was to feed a 

 mixture of nine parts of dried bran with one part of dried grass- 

 hoppers in a self-feeder, along with the regular daily ration of corn, 

 etc. 



Later experiments conducted during the summer of 1919 showed 

 that grass-hoppers caught with the hopper-dozer with either kero- 

 sene or gasoline as a killing agent may be dried even more success- 

 fully than those caught alive and that in feed value they are in every 

 way the equal of those caught without kerosene. 



Fig. 36. — Grass-hoppers drying on burlap. 



