HARVEST MITES, OR ‘‘CHIGGERS.”’ 7 
which sulphur has been mixed. Grasses on the borders of ponds 
frequented by cattle, wild blackberry bushes, and similar plants 
should also be cut down and destroyed in the vicinity of houses and 
- where children and older persons are liable to mite infestation’ by 
passing through them. Well-cultivated fields kept free from weeds 
are not infested with ‘‘chiggers,’’ and in the course of' time, perhaps 
a year or two, the measures prescribed, if carefully carried out in 
grassy locations, should also entirely free these from the pests. 
In severely chigger-infested tracts of, say, 400 acres, where there 
are no bushes or shrubs of value, cattle may be inadequate, and 
correspondents and others have stated as their experience that after 
turning sheep into the fields the chiggers were destroyed. Undoubt- 
edly this was due largely to the fact that the sheep kept the grass 
more closely cropped than cattle would have done, but there is 
also a belief that the chiggers ascend the legs of the sheep and 
that the oil or lanoline of the wool is responsible for their death. 
Hence it is believed that sheep turned into large tracts such as 
deseribed would accomplish the eradication of the mites more 
thoroughly and in a shorter space of time than would perhaps any 
other domestic animal, even including goats, which might be used in 
some Cases. 
For the eradication of chiggers on the grounds of wealthy private 
individuals and clubs the application of ordinary flowers of sulphur 
might be both cheaply and thoroughly made by the use of one of the 
dust blowers used for dusting potatoes with Paris green, or by one of 
the sulphur dusters used for spraying orange trees for the red spider in 
California. These sprayers are capable of throwing a fan-shaped dis- 
charge about 8 feet wide and effect very even and thorough distribution. 
The cost of application, allowing 50 pounds of sulphur per acre, 
should be from $1 to $1.50 per acre, and since with one man and a team 
30 to 40 acres a day may be covered, the expense of application is not 
great. Such a duster costs from $65 to $80. 
WASHINGTON ; GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE; 1915 
