30 INJURIOUS INSECTS OF 1903. 



try like a prairie fire in November, and within six weeks I had over 2,000 

 acres turned over. A good many of these men, after completing their 

 contracts, returned to their abandoned homesteads and broke twenty 

 acres or more, each, for themselves. Then came the fall plowing, and 

 the panic gradually quieted down. Meantime the "hoppers" had de- 

 voured the crops, had grown to maturity, filled the ground with eggs 

 again, and departed. Evidently there was more trouble to come. With 

 2,000 acres of newly broken land to be utilized, we built a farm house, 

 with barn, sheds, granary, etc. Next spring it was all put in crops, in- 

 cluding corn, oats, fiax, barley, etc., and one square mile field in wheat. 



About the first of June the growing grain was something to be proud 

 of as we looked it over, but a close inspection revealed the ground alive 

 with 'hoppers again. I would not weary this audience with any more 

 grasshopper war stories, but we have recently heard that they filled the 

 ground with eggs last fall in certain northwestern counties of the state, 

 and our experience may be helpful to those interested there. 



I telegraphed to St. Paul for barrels of coal tar and for plates of 

 sheet iron about eight feet long by four feet wide, and we undertook to 

 save that squat;e mile of wheat in this way. The sheet iron plates were 

 bent up a little at the front edge, and at the rear edge a strip was turned 

 up six or eight mches wide. These plates were laid along the south line 

 of the field at the southeast corner, with a space of eight or nine feet be- 

 tween them, end to end. A horse was placed in front of, and between, 

 each pair of plates, his whiffletree attached by wires about nine feet 

 long to the nearest corners of the two plates behind him, so that when 

 ready to advance, the "line of battle," as the boys called it, extended 

 about as many rods as there were plates. Then the plates were brushed 

 over with coal tar, and the line advanced northward. The 'hoppers in 

 front of the horse would jump to the right and left, and another and final 

 jump would land them in the tar. At first a man was required to manage 

 each horse, but as they became used to the work, their heads were con- 

 nected by lines, so that a man at each end, and one to spare, could guide 

 a line of eight or nine horses and clean about sixteen acres at every trip 

 across the field. Each pan would accumulate a load of several bushels 

 of 'hoppers in crossing the field, and at the end of the trip the pans were 

 cleaned with shovels, rebrushed with tar, readjusted in line, and a return 

 trip was made in like manner over the adjacent ground. 



While all this did not work smoothly and perfectly at first, it did 

 after a few hours' practice, and we thus covered the entire square mile in 

 five days. 



The next week we went over the ground in like manner from east 

 to west, and found we had effectually cleaned up the little pests without 

 appreciable injury to the growing grain, and then our other fields were 

 treated in like manner. These operations were watched with great in- 

 terest by neighboring farmers, and many of them saved their crops by 

 similar efforts. 



