GRASSHOPPERS.^ 101 



head of a farm than to have a sleeping man at the 

 throttle of the engine of a fast train. Farming is a 

 business which requires education, training, and skill. 

 You do not use foresight. We had a severe grass- 

 hopper outbreak last year, and you had every reason 

 to suspect that there would be one this year. You 

 never thought of watching where they laid most of 

 their eggs. You noticed last spring that they first 

 appeared in large numbers in pastures, along hedges, 

 roadsides, and in waste places, but you never tried 

 to do anything to stop them. When they had spread 

 over your crops and destroyed them, you sat down 

 and grumbled about the hard luck and the hard 

 times." 



"Now, Will, tell us just what you did this summer 

 to keep those pesky things out of your crops," Jim 

 requested. 



"I did many things this summer, Jim," Will ex- 

 plained. "Many of them I expected to do, but 

 equally as many came up unexpectedly. You see 

 a farmer has to watch everything on the place and 

 do what is necessary from time to time, even if he 

 has not planned it that way. I do not farm by rule. 

 So, the first thing I did was to have as little waste 

 land as possible. I watched the grasshoppers last 

 season, and during the winter I knew where they 

 would come from in case of an outbreak. The ab- 

 sence of much of the waste land gave me fewer grass- 



