20 ^[ONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 294 



predict the weather. In some years hatching may begin during the 

 first part of April and again there may not be any economic species 

 of young grasshoppers out until late May or early June. It was 

 highh- desirable in this campaign to have supplies of bait on hand 

 before the hatching of the eggs had proceeded very far. Consequently 

 with the appropriation not available until March 28, and with the 

 federal officers not able to purchase any supplies until that time, 

 there was necessaril}- a great rush at the mixing plants to get the 

 first supply of bait to the counties before the hatching of the grass- 

 hoppers started. This haste in the purchasing and handling of tre- 

 mendous quantities of materials accounted for some of the first ship- 

 ments containing lumpy arsenic and occasionalh^ such high moisture 

 content that heating occurred in transit. However, the method of 

 shipping ready-mixed bait containing everything but the requisite 

 amount of water, especiallj' in a case like this when thousands of 

 tons of poisoned material had to be handled, was very satisfactory. 

 With but very few exceptions, the bait gave excellent results. 



The rate at which the bait was laid down at Montana points may 



be seen from the following tabulation : 



Total number of carloads 

 Date received (20 to 25 ton cars) 



Up to April 28 30 



t, „ May ] 90 



„ t, ,1 5 , 190 



1, M „ 9 _ 200 



M II M 1?) - - 310 



M II H 1 7 385 



II II M 21 410 



n .1 II 25 430 



I. I. II 20 480 



II II June 2 610 



II II t. (> 6G0 



M II .. 10 _ 680 



" " ti 14 790 



" " " IS 810 



11 11 11 22 865 



" " " 2(5 890 



II II n 30 910 



II II July 4 910 



II II n 8 920 



M II II 12 923 



From table 2 it will be seen that 3,254.6 tons of l)ait was left over 

 from the 1934 campaign. Offhand it may appear that our ealcula- 



