Show God Bless the Toads BELLEVUE Ida Aug 23Special telegram tele-gram t THE HIuALDJGod bless the r toads is the blessing invoked by the grasshopper region of Camas Prairie This section is the largest farming region Logan county It has been peculiarly unfortunate for the past two seasons because be-cause of the damage done by the ravenous grasshoppers Even last winter the humble hum-ble settlers bad t appeal for aid to the outside world and no one responded more liberally to the call for help than the good people of Salt Lake and Ogden This season the grasshoppers came again and yesterday the deliverance came in a shower of toads that extsnded from the I town of Soldier to High Prairie a distance of twenty miles or more An ominous looking cloud suggestive of a cyclone appeared ap-peared in the west and preceded by a high wind ended in giving such a down pouring of rain a was never before known in Camas With the unusually heavy rain came also a rain of toads No estimate t the bushels of toads t the acre can be relied upon It is enough for the grasshopper sufferers t know that the toads in twentyfour hours have swept the plague of hoppers from the face of the earth The peculiar shower is the talk of the country round about not only because of its remarkable feature but because it saves the crop of oats that was approaching approach-ing the harvest The wheat crop had already al-ready been seriously damaged by the hoppers hop-pers There is another remarkable feature Last week Prof Bruner of theuniversity and a corps of entomological experts visited vis-ited the prairie and gathered three or four bushels of the pests promptly submitting rJ the to a harrowing microscopical examination J exami-nation on the spot J The gentlemen who are eminent in their entomological examinations at once discovered dis-covered that the pests were suffering from a disease which would eventually rid the country of them unless some healthy speci men who bad strayed away before the disease appeared should return withan other swarm the disease being somewhat untrustworthy in its work of death and destruction t the pests The learned gentlemen gen-tlemen wrote an extensive report to the general government asking that the agricultural agri-cultural department take the matter in hand and acclimatize a fungus which inoculates I inoc-ulates the pest with a disease which is sure death to the last of them This fungoid growth spreads radidly but where an immediate I im-mediate effect is desired over a large extent ex-tent of country it proves too slow to offset this The gentlemen referred to recommend recom-mend that specimens of the fungus be planted on every section of land at least and at the public expense I this should bo done the grasshoppers would never trouble the prairie again but the phenom inal shower of toads has solved the problem prob-lem The people of the prairie are now rendering thanksgiving to the toads where they were before praying for fungi |