16 
feet long and 6 feet wide, there was almost a solid mat of nests.” We 
were informed by Mr. James early in May that upon this roadbed, 
which had been thoroughly cultivated even as late as March 12, few 
of the eggs hatched, and this single experience convinced him of the 
value of winter cultivation. In the Delta, as far south as the State 
of Mississippi, warm, summer-like spells of weather often occur in 
winter, and fertile eggs exposed to such conditions invariably hatch, 
with the result that the young perish during subsequent winter 
weather, while eggs in pods just below the surface of the ground do 
not hatch until the latter part of April or early in May. It is there- 
fore evident that the practice of fall, and even spring, cultivation is 
one of the most available means of destroying grasshopper eggs. 
Unfortunately, upon plantations of many thousand acres, and espe- 
cially upon those where a number of waste tracts occur, it is impossible 
to find all of the egg areas and to effect the remedy of winter cultiva- 
tion. 
The use of kerosene upon egg-beds at the time of hatching.—One or 
two seasons’ experience with grasshoppers greatly quickens the pow- 
ers of observation, and egg-beds not discovered in the fall and winter 
may be detected the first week in May by the presence of the young 
grasshoppers. Upon Dahomy spray pumps were kept actively at work 
upon egg areas, spraying each with 12 per cent coal-oil emulsion at 
least once a day. It often happened that as many young grasshoppers 
were in evidence the day following each application, but careful obser- 
vation soon revealed the fact that only those hatching after the emul- 
sion had been applied survived, and those were killed by the next 
spraying. While the emulsion spray was found expensive when com- 
pared with that of cultivation, yet in the face of such conditions as 
prevailed in the Mississippi Delta its effectiveness many times out- 
weighed the expense. Applications of coal tar were not made to the 
egg-beds, but there is every reason to believe that this substance would 
also have proven useful. The use of coal tar in the hopperdozer and 
upon the drag sheets certainly warrant a trial of it upon egg areas. 
Spraying ditches.—Vhe experience in spraying ditch banks soon 
developed the cheaper and perhaps more effective method of destroy- 
ing young grasshoppers, that of damming water in the ditches and 
covering the surface with coal oil or coal-oil emulsion. Before and 
after rains the ditches were dammed and the water covered with a 12 
per cent coal-oil emulsion. The young grasshoppers were then driven 
into the ditches, with the result that very few, if any, escaped. In 
this way a single application of oil would last several days, as many 
millions may easily float upon the water of a ditch not more than 2 
feet- wide. Unless the grasshoppers are scattered too far from the 
ditch banks no difficulty is experienced in getting them to move in the 
