9 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 637. 
clover fields of the eastern section of the country with equally good 
results. Indeed, the three species here discussed are at times destruc- 
tively abundant in the red-clover fields of the East and Middle West, 
and the writer has there used the ‘‘hopperdozer” to advantage. 
EARLY DEPREDATIONS. 
With the rapid increase in the culture of alfalfa throughout the 
country there has come the problem of protecting this crop from 
attacks of several species of grasshoppers, or locusts. The reason 
for this state of affairs is not at all obscure, as in order to breed 
freely and in destructive numbers these grasshoppers require two 
conditions: First, an undisturbed soil for the protection of their eggs 
after these have been deposited; and, second, an early food supply for 
the young in spring. No 
other crop comes so near 
supplying these condi- 
tions to an ideal degree 
as does alfalfa. 
Thus it is that the 
Fig. 1.—Differential grasshopper ( Melanoplus differentials). f armer, especially in the 
Natural size. (After Riley.) West, has from the be- 
ginning of alfalfa culture been sorely beset by these pests, whose de- 
structive hordes might even now be said to follow closely in the foot- 
prints of the reclamation engineer. 
SERIOUSNESS OF INJURIES. 
Hardly a season passes during’ which more or less serious outbreaks 
ported in different localities, and the aid of the Bureau of 
cy is frequently invoked in destroying these grasshoppers 
rise lessening their ravages. Thus, during the year 1913, 
serious idespread injuries occurred in New Mexico, Kansas, Okla- 
homa, New Hampshire, and Vermont, with lesser outbreaks in Ari- 
zona, Texas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Wyoming. It is 
in no wise likely that these numbers indicate more than a minor por- 
tion of the destructive outbreaks of these pests that actually occurred 
over this territory, and the seriousness of some of these outbreaks is 
indicated by the fact that as many as 12 complaints were received 
from a single locality. In fact, the probabilities are that, as the 
area of cultivation of alfalfa increases, the amount of injury inflicted 
by these insects will greatly increase in future unless measures are 
taken to control them. 
