73 



The injury for the present season is mainly past, as the grasshoppers are in large 

 part mature, many already pairing, and the loss of the seed crop, the heaviest part of the 

 loss, beyond repair. The effort, therefore, must be toward preventing +he damage 

 another year, and it seems to be very desirable that the Division should distribute to 

 the people of this section a careful set of directions for their guidance this fall and next 

 spring in working against the grasshoppers. 



The means which appear to me from the inspection of the ground to promise most 

 successful results would be as follows : 



(1) To thoroughly break up the surface of the ground in and along the ditches 

 before winter by harrowing thoroughly, cultivating or shallow plowing, thus exposing 

 the eggs to winter weather and natural enemies. 



(2) Wherever practicable, to flood the ground for a day or two at the time young 

 locusts are hatching. I was told that the young hoppers were entirely unaffected by 

 water, as they would crawl up the alfalfa stems and escape, and it is probable that 

 suflScient flooding to accomplish much good in this region is out of the question. My 

 only hope in this line would be in watching carefully for the time of hatching, and using 

 the water before the hoppers had obtained any growth, and if abundant along the ditches, 

 putting a little kerosene on the water. 



(3) A use of the hopperdozer as early in the season as possible, when I believe the 

 treatment of a strip eight or ten feet wide on each side of the ditches would destroy so 

 large a part of their number as to prevent any serious damage. As I learned from a 

 number of parties the hoppers are scarcely half grown when the first crop is cut, it would 

 seem that immediately after cutting the first crop would be the best time to use the 

 hopperdozer. The hoppers would be large enough to jump readily and the dozers could 

 be run very easily. It would be diflicult to use them at any other time then directly 

 after a crop was cut, as the dense growth of alfalfa would obstruct their movement. 



My strongest recommendation would be the urging of effort in breaking up egg 

 masses before winter, and then in case locusts still appear in any number in spring to 

 resort to the dozers at first opportunity. I believe active use of these measures will be 

 effectual, with a cost but trifling compared with the value of the crop to be saved. 



The information as to the species and the measures needed are covered very fully in 

 your Bulletin on Destructive Locusts, and with some specific instruction regarding the 

 treatment of ditches in this special locality would, I think, give the people of the district 

 affected all the information necessary to protect themselves, and it would seem advisable 

 to send a number of copies of that bulletin to the postmasters at G-arden City, Likin 

 and Syracuse, to distribute to farmers who would make use of them, as well as to those 

 whose names I will furnish for this purpose. 



OTHER SPECIES OBSERVED. 



The species next to differentialis that I should call most abundant in the injured 

 fields was hivittatus, but taken alone its damage would have been insigni&oant. Its 

 habits are so nearly like those of diferentialis that I see no occasion to give it further 

 mention, and I have little doubt that any measures adopted against differentialis will 

 prove as eflfective against this species. 



Still other species occurred, but seemed generally distributed, and so far as injury in 

 the devastated fields is coucerned need no mention. 



THE LONG-WINGED LOCUST. 



Dissosteira longipennis was taken in some numbers at all points visited in Finney, 

 Kearney, Hamilton and Greeley Counties, and as this species has caused so much injury 

 in eastern Colorado this season, I took rather special pains to note its abundance and 

 inquire as to any destruction resulting from it. At no point did it occur in destructive 

 numbers, and I should not look for any injury from it in these localities in the near 

 future at least. 



