266 Kansas Academij of Science. 



On June 7 following, the first party wrote that he had 

 failed to get any effective results from the methods as recom- 

 mended, and he requested that a personal inspection be made. 

 He emphasized his appeal by stating that his section of country 

 was in no shape to stand any further loss of crops, and he 

 feared that unless something could be done promptly in order 

 to stop ravages of the grasshoppers the crops would otherwise 

 be entirely destroyed. While stating that a large number of 

 the insects had not reached maturity, he declared that they had 

 already done considerable damage by completely destroying 

 small cotton plants and injuring all young corn. Owing to the 

 repeated plantings of his cornfields, which had been necessi- 

 tated by failure of the sprouts due to infestation by the 

 southern corn rootworm early in the season, most of the stands 

 were still in a tender stage of growth, being late and not very 

 high. 



By appointment, with the object of rendering all possible as- 

 sistance in the matter, a visit was made by the writer on the 

 next day. On arrival by train at Oscar station on the Frisco 

 railway a neighbor at once directed attention to the cotton 

 fields on his plantation, situated a short distance sout)i of the 

 lailroad. In the first field that was visited the grasshoppers 

 were found to have invaded it in scattered numbers from the 

 weedy bank of a shallow bayou. They had destroyed many 

 plants and eaten away portions of the foliage on most of the 

 remaider of the stand throughout the adjoining half of the 

 field. Their ravages were also noticeable beyond the middle 

 part, even extending close the oppsite edge. The loss of stand 

 was greatest in a sunken spot where the plants had barely put 

 out their first leaves. On account of the small size and tender 

 nature of these leaves, the grasshoppers had completely de- 

 foliated quite a number of the sprouts, and in several instances 

 had also gnawed the stems. 



While the ratio of dead and dying sprouts was not verj-- large 

 in comparison with the number of living plants, yet the sur- 

 viving growth showed that it could easily be killed or at least 

 suffer a serious backset if the ravages increased, because a con- 

 siderable amount of foliage had already been consumed. 

 Nearly every plant had one or more grasshoppers resting upon 

 it. On observing that the majority of the grasshoppers in the 

 field were winged adults, some apprehension M^as felt th;it fur- 



