A TRIUMPH FOR SCIENCE. 
131 
A Triumph for Science. 
BY WALTER S. ABBOTT. 
Had anyone said, ten years ago, that we should some 
day import a disease from South Africa to rid our fields of 
grasshoppers he would have been laughed at or called in¬ 
sane but when the scientist, the entomologist, and the sci¬ 
entific agriculturist work together, something is bound to 
happen, and this seemingly impossible deed has actually 
been done. 
In 1899 and 1900 the plantations in the vicinity of Boli¬ 
var county, Mississippi, were overrun with a species of 
locust (Melanoplus differentialis) and great damage done. 
On one plantation, before the middle of July, three hund¬ 
red acres of cotton and one hundred and fifty acres of corn 
had been entirely destroyed, the oat crop damaged fully 
fifty per cent, and the other crops badly injured. 
The owners of the infested plantations applied to the 
Department of Agriculture, and a man was sent to see 
what could be done, and many plans were tried for the de¬ 
struction of the invaders. The infested fields were plowed 
in the fall, thus exposing the eggs, which are laid just be¬ 
low the surface, to a degree o* cold which would destroy 
many of them. The egg-beds were spread at time of 
hatching with a solution of kerosene, which, although ex¬ 
pensive, w T as very effective. The ditches in some places 
were filled with water, and the surface covered with a film 
of oil, and then the insects were driven into them, by beat¬ 
ing the surrounding herbage with brushes, and large num¬ 
bers killed in this way. A mash of bran and arsenic w r as 
tried in some places, but with little success. 
While all these plans were effective in a certain degree, 
they were very expensive, and it remained for science and 
the bacteriologists to save the fields. It had been noted 
