146 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



In two years more they were in every potato field 

 of New York State, and by the third year they covered 

 New England. Then we had a job. They ate all 

 before them, and their countless progeny finished 

 the work. The larvae started from a mass of yellow 

 and most disagreeable looking eggs, themselves more 

 disagreeable, for a few years rendering our potato 

 crop a negation. It was nearly as bad as the blight, 

 and our agricultural colleges with their experiment 

 stations were hardly then born. Science, however, 

 stepped in and solved the problem. The pest is 

 still moving on, and we can help move it by spraying 

 every potato field thoroughly with arsenites, as we 

 apply Bordeaux for the blight. 



The Kansas grasshopper illustrates a very common 

 rival of ours which has made history in Bible lands 

 and all through the Orient, for this hopper is nothing 

 else than the old time locust the same that St. John 

 ate and which constituted and still constitutes an ar- 

 ticle of diet for millions of people. I saw the edge 

 of the battle field in Missouri, and that was enough 

 to explain why the people deserted their homes and 

 fled the country. Professor Johonnot and myself, 

 standing twenty feet apart, shook our hats before us 

 as we approached each other and caught a pint each 

 of the quarter-grown insects. This was out of the 

 main battle field and the hoppers were only fairly 

 well at work. 



When the Government sent Professor Rilcy to 



