53 



THE AMOUNT OF INJURY. 



The jrreat loss this year has resulted from the destruction of the seed 

 crop. In many fields this has been a total failure, and the loss may be 

 considered as covering thousands of acres and involving many thou- 

 sands of dollars. One man who had something over 100 acres in alfalfa 

 considered that his loss amounted to about $2,000. While he expected 

 to cut and use the crop for hay, the damage had been such that the hay 

 would be little better than after the seed croj) had been secured, and 

 he reckoned the full loss of the seed crop for the season. In some cases 

 farmers were cutting for hay when they had intended to allow the crop 

 to go to seed, and in this way were reducing the amount of their loss 

 by the value of the crop of hay cut early over what the hay would be 

 worth after maturing seed, the latter, of course, being much less valua- 

 ble than the hay cut before seed matures. In many cases the farmers 

 had been depending largely upon tlie crop of seed to help them out of 

 debt, and the loss from the grasshopper injury falls heavily upon them. 



THE SPECIES DOING THE DAMAGE. 



The Difterential Locust is, I think, chargeable with fully nine-tenths 

 of the destruction, botl) in alfalfa and orchards, and the reasons for its 

 increase in this section seem to me quite evident. The irrigated fields 

 of alfalfa furnish it with fiivorite food in abundance throughout the 

 year, and have given it an opportunity to multiply rapidly without ex- 

 hausting its food supply. 



The ditches which traverse the fields and possibly parts of the fields 

 themselves furnish a most excellent location for the deposition of eggs, 

 the ground being compact and for the most part undisturbed through- 

 out the year. That the eggs are deposited in or alongside the ditches 

 is indicated by several facts, though at the time of my visit the locusts, 

 while pairing, were none of them ovipositing. In the first place, the 

 greatest damage has occurred in stri])s on either side of the ditches, and 

 only in the worst fields extends over the entire field; second, at the 

 time of my visit the pairing individuals were quite evidently collecting 

 more particularly in these locations; third, the testimony of those who 

 seemed to have observed most closely agreed in placing the greatest 

 number of young hoppers in spring along the borders of the ditches, a 

 point which is clearly supported by the injured strips so plainly to be 

 seen. No one whom I questioned had seen the locusts in the act of 

 ovipositing. 



The ditches contain no water during a large part of the year, and in 

 fall the compact bottom, which doubtless aflbrds more moisture than 

 the fields in general, would seem an excellent place for the deposition 

 of eggs, as well as the banks on either side. Judging by the habits of 

 these and allied species in other locations it would be hard to conceive 

 a more favorable place for the deposition of eggs, and it seems to me 



