﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 129 



comparatively useless when the insects begin to travel in concert 

 over wide stretches of land. The same may be said of all mechanical 

 contrivances to facilitate the destruction of the insects : they are use- 

 ful if used in concert in a given neighborhood soon after the young 

 hatch, but subsequently do not compare to ditching. Mr. Charles D. 

 Zimmerman, of Buffalo, N. Y., has sent me the plan of an immense 

 bag, by which he found that he could catch large quantities of native 

 species. To a frame 15 feet long and 3 feet high is tacked a stretch 

 of cheap cotton cloth. The stuff is closed at the ends, and when the 

 frame is mounted on wheels, and drawn across a meadow, the locusts 

 accumulate in the bag which drags on the ground, and there form a 

 tangled mass and do not escape. The same style of bag, on a larger 

 scale and drawn with a horse at each end, and with an arrangement 

 whereby the lower edge of the bag could be unhooked from the frame 

 and the accumulated insects dumped into pits, would prove useful. 

 Mr. J. Hetzel, who has had considerable experience at Longmont, 

 Col., writes me that the best means he has seen of fighting the locusts, 

 if they do not hatch on the ground, is a burner drawn by horses. '' It 

 is 12 feet long, 2 to 2^ feet wide and made of iron, set on runners 4 

 inches high. An open grate on the top of the runners is filled with 

 pitch pine wood, and a sheet covers the grate to keep the heat down. 

 Two men and a team will burn 10 to 12 acres a day, and kill two-thirds 

 of the insects, but it requires a hot fire." Mr. C. C. Horner gives in 

 the Colorado Farmer the following more detailed description of what 

 appears to be the same machine : 



It consists of three runners made of 2x4 scantling three feet in length, to be 

 placed six feet apart, making the machine twelve feet wide, runners to be bound 

 together by three Hat straps or bars of iron (the base being 12 feet long.) Across the 

 top, bars of iron hold the runners lirnaly together and form a frame across which 

 wire can be worked, to make a grate to hold tire. The upper part of the runners should 

 be hollowed out so that the grate may glide along within two inches of the ground. 

 A sheet iron arch should be set over this grate to drive the heat downward. This 

 machine is very light and can be worked with one horse ; pitch-wood is best adapted 

 for burning and can be chopped the right length and size and left in piles where most 

 convenient, when needed. This machine is intended to be used when the little hoppers 

 just make their appearance along the edge of the grain, going over the ground once or 

 twice each day, or as often as necessary to keep them killed off. The scorching does 

 not kill the grain but makes it a few days later. This is certainly the cheapest manner 

 of getting rid of this pest, as well as the most effectual. 



Mr, Rufus Clark, of Denver, according to the same paper, uses a 

 piece of oil cloth, nine to twelve feet long, and six feet wide ; one side 

 and each end is secured to light wooden strips by common carpet 

 tacks, and the corners strengthened by braces. 



''The oil cloth is smeared with coal tar, purchased at the Denver 

 Gas Works for 17.50 per barrel, and the trap is dragged over the ground 

 by two men — a cord about ten feet long being fastened to the front 

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