Show TAKE TIME BY THE FORELOCK and get busy in your fields with the disc and spring tooth harrow to kill the grasshoppers the grasshoppers are making an early appearance this year already they are hopping about the fields in some places in numbers sufficient to cause alarm some of them have attained the length of one half inches while many are just hatching out the threatened damage of this year is largely due to a lack of effort to avoid them last summer articles were written urging fall plowing and cultivation des pite the extensive damage done little or no effort was made to control their reappearance this year the lack of interest the lack of effort the lack of work is responsible to a large degree for the reappearance of the hoppers in in sufficient numbers to threaten the crops this summer the deep fall of snow has been very favorable for the egg passes to pass unharmed through the winter the ground was soon covered with snow and any freezing and thawing of the ground was prevented the egg masses are still unbroken and examination shows the presents bof of eggs in considerable numbers many eggs have been examined and in almost every case they were viable the principal bleeding places ire are alona the ditch banks and roads and in wiste places in cultivating alinz for iem special effort should be made to see that lug ditch babil baila 1 are thoroughly forked in orchards many have a gid id their eggs because the ground round is seldom stirred the ggs aggs are usually deposited in ground or on places which tire re not mowed or harrowed A ody place is avoided because of the fae difficulty in making a hole in chich to deposit the eggs the enormous increase in in numbers ets is easily accounted for when it is known that the females la lay from forty to one hundred and fifty es eggs C 9 each and every year this points to destroying uie the eggs as a mears of control fall plowing is aljy fr far the most effective means of control we have this breaks up the egg masses and exposes them to the action of the freezing weather whenever possible fall plowing should be done as a means of increasing the crop yield as well as minimizing the danger of insect pests all lands not fall plowed should be harrowed or disked fall work vork is the most effective but those who have not done this should redouble their efforts now to destroy the hop pers before they hatch all ditch banks roads fence lines and waste places should be thoroughly harrowed or plowed at once do not wait until hoppers have hav wings with which to escape you nor until they have destroyed your crops to begin to fight besides controlling cont bont roling the hoppers it is a benefit to cultivate alfalfa we have tried some thirty five experiments in the basin among the farmers of cultivating alfalfa everyone reported that it to cultivate because of the increased yield in some cases the yield was doubled and the necessity of the first irrigation postponed from one week to an entire elimination of the irrigation every means should be taken to destroy the eggs and the few which hatch after cultivation should be promptly destroyed by means of poisoned bran or caught by means of a catcher the bran bait consists of 20 pounds bran 1 pound paris pans green or white arsenic 2 quarts syrup 3 oranges or lemons 3 12 1 2 gallons of wa ter white arsenic is often used instead of paris pans green the catcher is made either of canvass or screen wire and tin with a lumber frame utah bulletin number describes in detail how to make both of these catchers the man who waits and hopes that some disease will come and kill the hoppers off or who waits for some cold night to save him the labor of controlling them is is like aman who sits on the ditch bank watching the clouds hoping for it to rain when his crops are burning up some are so discouraged as to hesitate about planting the man who does not plant pant cannot hope to reap but the man who plants and fights can very well hope for good crops the immense amount of damage done last year ought to teach us the futility of sitting idly by while the hoppers feast crop after crop was lost entirely and only tons of alfalfa were harvested where hundreds of tons ought to have been gathered for self protection and for mutual benefit every farmer ought to start the fight now As conjoint action in anything is more effective so an organized effort of the farmers will yield far reaching benefits yours truly M L harris county agent U S dept |