440 Red Spider and Other Mites. 
rapidly. They exhaust the sap from the leaves, causing them to 
turn yellow and fall, exposing the grapes to sunburn. There 
are two kinds of vine hoppers. One in the Fresno region rises 
in a cloud when the vine is disturbed; the one at Florin, and at 
some points near the coast, drops to the ground. There is yet 
no satisfactory way to catch the insects that rise into the air. 
The ones that drop to the ground are handled quite satisfactorily 
by using wide, shallow pans in which half an inch of water with 
a little kerosene oil is put. These pans are made half round on 
a circle about a yard in diameter. —Two men take pans and both 
come up to the vine quickly from opposite sides and push the 
pans under it. Thus the two pans largely cover the ground 
under the vines and the bugs drop into the kerosene. Some 
growers have saved their crops in this way. Treatment should 
begin early in the season, before the vines run out so far that 
it becomes so difficult to drop the hoppers in the pans. 
False Chinch-Bugs.—Small, grayish-brown insects (about . 
one-eighth of an inch long when fully grown), which injure the 
vine leaves. They drop to the ground when the vine is dis- 
turbed, and may be caught as just described for vine hoppers. 
Grasskoppers—These pests often invade orchard and vine- 
yard, and sometimes kill the plants outright by completely de- 
foliating them. This plague has been successfully met by the 
use of the arsenic and bran remedy, prepared as follows: Forty 
pounds of bran, fifteen pounds middlings, two gallons of cheap 
syrup, twenty pounds arsenic, mixed soft with water; a table- 
spoonful thrown by the side of edch vine or tree. Cost per 
acre for trees, twenty-five cents; for vines, fifty cents. If placed 
on shingles about the vineyard, much of the poison not eaten 
may be afterward gathered up and saved. Complete success 
has resulted from the use of this remedy, as the grasshoppers 
eat it readily and die in their tracks.* 
Red Spider and Other Mites—Very minute insects, usually 
discernible only with the aid of a magnifier, sometimes destroy 
the leaves, causing them to lose their color and health by their 
inroads upon the leaf surface. The red spider and yellow mite 
are conspicuous examples; they infest nearly all orchard trees, 
especially the almond, prune, and plum. The eggs of the red 
spider are ruby-red globules, as seen with the magnifier, and 
are deposited in vast numbers upon the bark of the tree, and 
leave a red color upon the finger if it is rubbed over them. The 
eggs are very hard to kill, and treatment is most effective 
when applied in the spring and summer after the mites 
are hatched out. The popular remedy is a thorough dust- 
* For the protection of nurseries, orchards, and vineyards it is often necessary to resort 
to various devices for excluding the grasshopper, or for destroying them upon adjoining 
fields. Publications describing such devices may be had free by addressing the Secretary of 
Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
