CATCHING OR BAGGING LOCUSTS, 391 



Another device was used iu Colorado last summer, but is more com- 

 plicated. It consisted of a skeleton cylinder of wood frame-work covered 

 with canvas, the interior of which was to be coated with coal tar. The 

 ends were opened and fans were arranged there, so constructed as to 

 throw the locusts into the interior of the cylinder, where they would 

 become entangled in the tar and be poisoned by it. The machine runs 

 on wheels whose axle is the axis of the cylinder. 



A correspondent of The Kansas Fanner^ in the issue of June 6, 1877, 

 describes the following contrivance : 



I yesterday put together a machine whicli I do not propose to patent. It is con- 

 structed as follows : I had riveted together two sheets of stove-pipe iron, each 2 by 7 

 feet, making a surface of 4 by 14 feet. 1 rolled up the back side about 18 inches high, 

 and held it to its p'ace by nailing to it rounded inch boards. I turned up the frout a 

 trifle, and nailed to it a narrow strip of siding to stiffen the machine under the bottom, 

 well back, so that it will balance. I fixed a three-eighths round iron for an axle, and 

 fastened it by driving a staple over it near the ends and into the boards, end pieces. 

 The wheels should be 16 inches in diameter, made of inch boards, three thicknesses 

 nailed together, so that the grain of the wood will cross. I push my machine with a 

 handle made of half-inch iron, a piece 12 feet long, the ends flattened, and fastened to 

 the end board with screws, the rod bent up and made the proper shape, so as to come 

 about to the bottom of a man's vest when operating the ''dozer." I cover the surface 

 with tar (common), which will burn and is poison to the 'hopper. The machine tilts 

 over the axle and can be made to scrape the ground or raised to pass over grain or ob- 

 structions. The ''dozer" is a perfect success, gathers the 'hoppers almost as clean as a 

 reaper will cut grain ; none get away. . One week's work and four gallons of pitch tar 

 will clean the worst 'hoppered 160-acre farm in Minnesota. At one priming with tar 

 yesterday my man caught in about an hour a half bushel, estimated to make ten 

 bushels when grown. 



4. Catching ok, bagging. — " There are innumerable mechanical con- 

 trivances for this purpose. The cheapest and most satisfactory are 

 those intended to bag the insects. A frame two feet high and of 

 varying length, according as it is to be drawn by men or horses, with a 

 bag of sheeting tapering behind and ending in a small bag or tube, 

 say one foot in diameter and two or three feet long, with a fine 

 wire door at the end to admit the light and permit the dumping of 

 the insects, will do admirable work. The insects gravitate toward the 

 wire screen, and when the secondary bag is full they may be emptied 

 into a pit dug for the purpose. These bagging-machines will prove most 

 serviceable when grain is too high for the kerosene pans, just described, 

 and they will be rendered more effectual by having runners at distances 

 of about every two feet, extending a foot or so in front of the mouth, so 

 as to more thoroughly disturb the insects, and prevent them from get- 

 ting underneath ; also by having wings of vertical teeth, so as to in- 

 crease the scope with as little resistance to the wind as possible." 



Two important facts should always be borne in mind in using these 

 bagging-machines : 1st, that they should always be drawn, as far as 

 possible, against the wind, if this be stirring ; 2d, that in proportion as 

 the insects and the grain are advanced in growth, and the former be- 



