138 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 10 



The construction of the machine is simple and the exact size and 

 proportion relatively unimportant.^ A box two feet square and six- 

 teen feet long with a tight floor, the top and back of wire screen, 

 with three strips in front to which are tacked 30-inch tin sheets two 

 inches from the floor, is the ordinary form. The important thing is 

 the construction of the catching device. The latest and best models 

 have a low, false front, a narrow throat and an evenly curved apron 

 which will carry the grasshoppers well into the box, as shown in Figure 

 4. The top is hinged in sections so that the hoppers can be shoveled 

 out into sacks, dried and used as feed for chickens; thus changing a 

 potential loss into a profitable feed. 



The real value of the grasshopper machine is, however, as much in 

 its availability on a moment's notice as in its economy of operation. 

 Efficiency in insect control is founded upon promptness and effective- 

 ness. Grasshoppers should never be allowed to reach the stage where 

 they are threatening a crop, but crops will be threatened for a long 

 time to come — yes, and desffoyed, too — unless the future recommen- 

 dations of entomologists take into consideration the probable avail- 

 ability of different treatments and provide for the possibilities of 

 immediate application. 



President C. Gordon Hewitt: Is there any discussion? 



Mr. T. J. Headlee: How long has this machine been in operation? 



Mr. E. D. Ball: This machine has no inventor as far as I know. 

 I found it in successful operation in Colorado in 1900 and they credited 

 it to a man from Illinois. The machine they used had a curved front 

 with a straight piece of tin in front of it at the bottom. This allowed 

 the grasshoppers to slide straight down onto the bottom and jump 

 right back out. In building the later machines the front was made 

 double with the back curved so that the hoppers slid well back into the 

 box. As originally built, it had trap doors along the back through 

 which it could be emptied into a trench. Some enterprising man dis- 

 covered that grasshoppers were good chicken feed. We then made 

 the machines with the trap doors along the top from which the grass- 

 hoppers were shoveled into sacks. 



Mr. T. J. Headlee: Then you sack them up alive? 



Mr. E. D. Ball: Yes, sir. We use nothing at all. That is the 

 beauty of the machine — easy to build, and costs nothing to operate. 

 I have seen two small boys — in most places in Utah they have plenty of 

 small boys — go out in the early morning and sack up forty bushels of 

 grasshoppers in a few hours. 



1 Details of construction are given in Bulletin 1.38 of the Utah Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station. 



