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laud, and these with the grasshoppers, familiar to everybody, are capa- 

 ble of mowing down a quantity of grass during a season which ought 

 to be appreciated by the farmer. Grasshoppers need not be remarkably 

 plentiful to place a. dozen to a square yard, over 50,000 to the acre, and 

 is it any wonder that pastures run short in seasons when rain is scarce 

 or grasshoppers a little more plentiful than usual ! 



The kinds of insects so far mentioned perform their work in a way 

 that causes an actual lessening of bulk in the crop, but there is another 

 host, less noticeable in size as well as in method of work, whose actual 

 damage in reduction of available food for stock must be of very great 

 importance. These, like the Chinch Bug, which is one of their number, 

 simply puncture the leaves or stems of the grass and pump out its 

 juices, thereby abstracting much of the best food material even where 

 they do not cause a checking of growth and shriveling of the plants. 

 Many of these are insects of very minute proportions, but like the 

 Chinch Bug make up in numbers for their diminutive size. It is no 

 exaggeration I think to say that they occur by the million to the acre. 



A million mouths against a half a mouth, and is it necessary that the 

 individual mouth be a very large one to make the aggregate food con- 

 sumed equal that of the half cow % 



In order that my figures may not seem purely fanciful, I may state 

 that they are derived in part from actual count, but in all cases, when 

 count has been made, the circumstances have been such as to make the 

 numbers fall short of the actuality. 



I have captured leaf-hoppers on grass by throwing a net down verti- 

 cally and counting the number caught within the area inclosed by the 

 ring, and while it is hardly possible in this way to secure all that were 

 actually within that area the . average of a number of such captures 

 gives nearly a million to the acre. 



I have many times observed them when plentiful and tried to count 

 the number within a given area, but their activity makes this difficult. 

 By approaching them very slowly and keeping very quiet, I have on 

 some occasions been able to observe them closely and have on different 

 occasions been able to count many within the area of a few square inches ; 

 often two or more to a single blade of grass, and consequently I feel sat- 

 isfied that the estimate based on the numbers captured are far below 

 the actual numbers frequently occurring during seasons when they are 

 ordinarily abundant and greatly under the number in seasons when 

 they have multiplied to any unusual degree. It may perhaps be urged 

 that, even allowing them to abound in this degree every season, they 

 are too small to consume a very great amount of food. Possibly a mill- 

 ion leaf-hoppers would not exceed in bulk the half of an average cow, 

 but it should be remembered also that they grow very rapidly and must 

 consequently use proportionately large quantities of food, and that they 

 extract the most nutritious parts of the grass. That grass forms the 

 bulk of their food has not I think been questioned, but to be certain on 



