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At this place, Rioville, I have succeeded in killing off the hoppers so that they 
have not been able to do much damage yet. This season [ have had a vast quantity 
of them, beginning to show with the second cut of hay in May in alarming num- 
bers; I then had 3 or 4 men follow the mower with shovels, striking the hoppers. 
down and crushing them, and, early each morning, I followed along the ditches 
where they would collect on any grass or brush higher than the rest like roosting 
chickens, and I got large numbers in that way, probably 500 to 1,000 each morning. 
By this means a very formidable swarm, whose increase in a season would have 
amounted to an overwhelming and all-destructive mass, has been reduced so that it 
is now difficult to find specimens. All attempts to drive these hoppers into rivers or 
to any safe distance are wholly futile; no way remains but to kill them, and to make 
sure that they are dead; for they will often bear a full stroke with a shovel, especially 
if any grass is under them, and still live and prosper, and it is no inconvenience to. 
them to go without a head for a day or two at least. 
It is quite common to talk of them as ‘‘millions,” and they look formidable enough, 
but if a man kills 500 a day the swarm looks less in a few days; those that are gone 
are not seen fifty times a day looking like 10,000, and shortly they are perceptibly 
decreased and become wary and shy, needing extra diligence to catch. If morn- 
ings are cool they become numb and are easily got, though unfortunately only about. 
daylight, when unluckily many men are ‘‘numb” too. This process has, however, 
succeeded with me on 40 acres of alfalfa, and it is simply a question of putting on 
effort enough; will probably fail with hired “help” only, as it requires an unyield- 
ing determination to win. Probably a roller of 800 to 1,000 pounds’ weight and 
about 5 feet long, so as to just cover the swath of the mower, and to follow directly 
after it, would crush the bulk of them, and one man following up could dispatch such 
as escaped the roller. As each female hopper lays from 75 to 100 eggs, and they 
breed two or three times in a season, it is of the utmost importance that the first 
appearance in spring should be followed by instant action. 
_ No. 1, large green, and the smaller one of half growth are, I think, the Arabian 
locust. The No. 2, reddish-brown above and yellow underneath, is the toughest. 
The No. 3 is a kind generated, it seems, in the middle patch and chiefly found there. 
A small, crimson-colored, round insect sometimes attacks and, kills them, but not 
usually before the hoppers have leveled the field and left a brown desert behind 
and deposited the eggs of a coming generation. 
Some chemical substance of practicable application would be a boon to this 
region; the mechanical means I have indicated are too tiresome for general use, 
as many farmers are too busy to apply them.—[Daniel Bonelli, Lincoln County, 
Nev., August 2, 1891. 
Repty.—The green locust is Acridiwm shoshone, while the yellow one is Caloptenus 
differentialis and the slender one is Caloptenus bivittatus. All are comparatively local 
non-migratory species. The mechanical means mentioned in Bulletin No. 25 of the 
Division of Entomology will be the most satisfactory method of destroying them. 
No thoroughly easy way is known. You are advised to get some genuine arsenic 
and to try the bran-arsenic treatment, which you seem to have tried with a spurious 
substance. * * * —[August 24, 1891.] 
The Grasshopper Plague in Michigan. 
I take the liberty to write to you in regard to a grasshopper plague. In some 
parts of this country they are destroying everything in the line of grass, oats, corn, 
wheat, rye, and vegetables, even potatoes. At present writing they have infested 
about one-fourth of the cultivated area, but they are on the wing and spreading 
rapidly. Our stock will have to go. We have no pasture now and can not raise 
anything to winter it. I have read of Professor Snow’s method of disposing of 
chinch bugs and have thought the grasshoppers might be reached in the same way.— 
[James Dodd, Manistee County, Mich., June 27, 1891. 
