i INJURIOUS INSECTS OF I9Q09 AND IQIO. 
“Hprror STANDARD: I note, that in your issue of January 19, you have a 
reference to the coming of the Seventeen Year Locust. No prediction re- 
garding this insect has gone out from this office at any time; and, as you 
say, quotations of this kind are frequently unfulfilled. It seems a pity that 
things of this sort are spread over the country, unnecessarily alarming 
citizens, and causing more or less of a reflection upon the entomologist.—F. 
tL. Washburn, State Entomologist.” 
There is no prospect at present of an invasion of the Periodical 
Cicada or Seventeen-year Locust, though many states to the 
south and southeast of us have periodical appearances of this in- 
sect, which passes the seventeen years (or thirteen years in the 
case of the 13-year form) of its larval life in the ground. It is not 
out of place, perhaps, to take this opportunity to advise farmers to 
avoid accepting unauthorized statements regarding insects, appear- 
ing in the daily or county papers, and to read most carefully any 
communication authoritatively signed; for sometimes, as in the 
above example, the heading and the information contained in the 
letter are quite at variance. 
One will note, upon looking at the accompanying map, that 
grasshoppers were pretty well distributed over the state in 1909 
and 1910, drawing this conclusion from reports and complaints 
received through the mails, but that they became much more nu- 
merous, and consequently much more destructive, as one went 
west and northwest from St. Paul; and that in the Red River Val- 
ley, throughout its entire length, they were particularly severe. 
These are all native locusts or grasshoppers, as we all call them, 
as far as seen; and, when they are bad at all, loss is bound to be 
felt in the area indicated. In other words, in a farming locality 
which one might call a pioneer region, in that it is in the imme- 
diate vicinity of large tracts of untilled land, we will always have 
times of more or less trouble with grasshoppers. 
Although the yield of flax has been materially reduced, the 
entomologist does not believe that the entire output of grain by 
Minnesota has been materially diminished in 1910 by this year’s 
attack. But that is not the point at issue at present. The fact that 
