n Beli P re pares For Hopper A ttack Poison Bait Offensive Federal, Farm Leaders Seek Means of Protecting Awaits Insects as State This Year’s Bumper Crop By JOSEPH W. LaBINE Kids enjoy devilish pranks. Remember how catch grasshoppers, pull their legs and watch them tobacco’? Innocent fun, perhaps, but today the lowly grasshopper takes we used to ‘spit the early 1930s. warns of au even worse invasion. "Hoppers swarm like a horde of angry bees from one field to the next, ripping their way through ripening grain and leav- ing a path of desolation. windshield of a passing car. and make men fear the millenium has arrived. But when fall comes the grasshoppers disappear and federal departments of agriculture. They dig resting soil and shake their ® heads. Last year’s grasshop- pers have deposited millions of eggs which will hatch under favorable conditions and bring more trouble next summer. This routine has been re- peated for several years but farm men have not been idle. They've discovered the most effective method of combat- ing "hoppers is poison bait, a mixture of bran, sawdust, black- strap molasses, crude arsenic and water. Innumerable tons of this de- lectable diet have been offered the grasshoppers since 1930; this year an estimated 178,000 tons will be needed and much of it will be supplied by the federal government. | dition 1erly. But the worst grasshopper to 60 years ago when game were far more plentiful than now. For years it has been believed that when grasshoppers come they remain seven years, destroying crops annually. After this period has elapsed they allegedly to normalcy and are only a minor @ccurs. theory has ever been offered. It has been established, however, that dry, warm weather is favora- ble for grasshoppers and that the most severe outbreaks occur either during or following periods of drouth. Perhaps most drouth cy- cles are about seven years Summer Morning's Pastime. Poisan bait is spread in the fields | during late spring or early s before the "hoppers get started morning this mo throug! i and watch wagon Rains Haven't Helped. 3ut wet weather is unfavorable and great numbers of grass! often die 1 oppers hoppers opper says the bureat “Recent rains ove 1 the Middle West ¢ have much de¢ g of ._ | those in the ; is | of study | re . has an | in the Knov ’ 3 velop nel. , { and growth of vegetation have grasshoppers out of the cre it is too early to indicate that will not be needed over area con- ings this INES. necessary to make several applica- zi wt SIX1Y of fall. Whereas grasshoppers are known to hatch only once a year, bait spreaders They figurativ ered with food if it's " grasshoppers an interesting chapter in the BNE ipler 4 because of weather n been low. his mother the previous autumn. As | 1 i controi campaign. In contrast to many other inj hopper when | parents except that he lacks w | wide quite actively, beginning his life of | During the growth period he sheds | all the "hoppers hatched at grasshoppers and are frequently the | ed this year in South Dakota, Mon- lions.” | Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma 4s » 3 » enemy. Throughout its brief life the | kota, - which together will require winged flies which deposit | requirements this year for the en- o> ii A JIN internal portions the | ap , third of it! But one of the most important | solely on vegetable matter, birds | last fall an extra generation ap- often been made that grasshoppers | fall sown grain and added greatly particular ordinary sumn ing time is fro the temperature is less grees; moreover they can’t be | 90 degrees. Te grasshopper’'s pr i bife which have hatched c ssh ‘v's private life . BeSIOPD private edges fields. But the : / t : mortality of entomology. He hatches from . Not en which is burie 5011 bY | + ces Ny Set dse egg mich is buried soll bY | yilled to permit any | many as 441 eggs are vn to | have been deposited in one tun uri ous insects, the gr: newly hatched closely resembles his | trol Almost immediat upon emerging | from the egg he is able to hop about i destruction Forty to days | ‘ . ’ i or tw thie — . if Re ¢ later he has grown into maturity | or two, which would be sufficient if . he sam 1e."’ his skin five or six times. Cast-off 1 8 same ume i Q 11 4 £ < > » wed skins are often mistaken for dead | Widespread outbreaks are expect- basis for mistaken reports that | tana, Oregon, Missouri, Iowa, Ne- 2 . reaales ’ n “ala 1 14» grasshoppers are *‘dying by the mil- | braska, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Fight for Existence. | and Syn. Not OB : ’ ,.. | expected in North and Sout a- Man is not the grasshopper’s only F 3 . { 65,000 tons of hopper bait. 0 insect is plagued by parasitic two- | ) PP Total maggots | ” ‘ . Le PUS]t Nags tire nation are expected to be 178,- on the "hopper. These maggots de- | * 11 000 tons; two states will need one- vour the grasshopper’'s body and soon cause | 3 . its death. Extra Generations. The situation is made more acute factors in grasshopper control is the bird. Except for those living | feed on "hoppers and destroy large | numbers of them. The assertion has | are now so abundant because game | to the numberof eggs which passed birds are less numerous than for- | the winter in the soil. GRASSHOPPERS —A menace to | American agriculture that equals dust storms and drouth. Recognizing that successful con- trol measures depend on co-opera- | tion, well-organized campaigns are already under way in many states headed by trained entomologist who generally works with county agents. In turn come township and community leaders, mixing stations and bait-spreading crews. County | financing has supported a large pa of the campaign Last year 79,201 bait were suppl mat 1c ment a tons of poison gible Saving I hot WT 1 rer in ppel were : { neariy < {HH I SOO IX LU. O00 is the picture agricultural neck, a perennial | driven more than near insanity Adding to the | comfort is t that these | plagues have descended with great- est wrath upon those } have suffered m 13 I | drouth and dust storms during i nuisance In one farmer the fa Laat atntes % ¥ sLales wini | past eight years Disaster's Bedfellow. Perhaps it is logic that ; | hoppers, dust and drouth should go | hand hand and that one of these pestilences should lead to another. Lack of mois hoppers The destroy foliage and loosen the ea | to be swept about at the mercy of a | strong wind. More than one visitor from the industrial East has looked upon this desolation and turned his eyes away, swearing that drouth, dust and "hoppers will never be con- quered. But there's always another year and each spring the "hopper belt farmer faces life confidently, imbued with an undying faith that his luck must eventually change So it follows that again this year he thinks will change. Probably it will, because never since 1929 has the great plains area been so plenti- fully showered, with spring rains. Maybe the rain will kill these grass- hoppers; maybe the weather will become freakish and keep them from doing great damage; maybe the poison bait will work better than before. Maybe. At least we'll hope so! © Western Newspaper Union, al grass- in ture encourages grass- ‘hoppers, in turn m rik rin is is GRASSHOPPER INDICATIONS FOR 1938 x » 97 * ¢ RN 7 {Ps g 1 A , tT) A {77773 LOCAL INFESTATIONS (5-242) ; SEVERE INFESTATIONS (25-498) BR vcr SEVERE INFESTATIONS (50-100) . on. US. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ¥ By FLOYD GIBBONS H ELLO EVERYBODY: of us might have got into. girls, I wish it to be distinctly ur And, boys and derstood that I am very glad it Fent Barrett is an actor. musical show on Broadway not lon he is going to tell us about now. W for a vacation, but he hadn't been ti thriller went south rred in the closed, he g before hen the show he si: La ere long wi Fire Started in t It was a hot day, he first the smoker where he could tal the smoker is up front, the last car on the trair The train bowled along and without any hin near the Big City, the car Fent watching the po » his « was rier idly he Wash Room. Fent decided to oat off and be c« Eliza had ju gone v the n v wash 1 a r As close the door, but by this beaten back.” e I'¢ 1 we ( vith ail the » car lik Just train on it, it engineer “We c three on hanging car was miles an hour, the hi end of the train. getting panicky and dropped to the floor, trying to get a The fire was all throug the aisle and something move beneath steps. The porter had loc were standing on it squirmed around until th down onto the steps. wgh the car shooting out the door It back to step ey I felt myself my knees and put my nose to by this time—streaming right down onto the rear Fent felt lid which covers the platform. iron 80 it open. They they crowded he could swing up, and then The porter screamed to them not hi m thr up his of fire that licked back at go terrific that he made burned to death. slow down. to jump. The flames crowded them dodging broken glass and tongues h the rear windows. The heat was soon, rather than be The train started to jerk and five—to fifty—to forty. When it lowed. hurt. on for half a mile before it came to with it. frame. Not a window or a seat left, trying to disconnect it from the rest what I had been through.” that. The train went a stop, and we ran and caught up And they were having quite a time of the train because the steel was We got into another NU Service. Wild Dog Known as Dingo Ancient as the race of dogs may be, nobody yet definitely has traced their kinship to other mammals. What sort or form of animal pre- ceded the domesticated dog as we know him still is a moot question. However, there are some forms of the animal which must more closely resemble the prehistoric than any them is the native wild dog of Aus- The Name Eunice The name Eunice is of Greek "” It appears in the Bible in II Timothy's mother. Discoverer of Steam Power James Watt, Scottish engineer (1736-1819), was the first to realize the possibilities of steam power. He never made an electrical discovery, though his name signifies an electric power unit, Oldest College Fraternity Oldest college fraternity in the world, Phi Beta Kappa, was found- ed in 1776 as a social and literary society at William and Mary col- lege, Williamsburg, Va. It spread to Yale (1780), Harvard (1781), sur- vived the closure of William and Mary by Revolutionary battles in 1781. Since 1826 it has been a non- secret, purely honorary fraternity, choosing members on the basis of excellence in studies. Grows Blue Grass In a general way the southwestern section of Virginia grows natural blue grass; the Shenandoah valley and the tier of counties lying east of the Blue Ridge, called Piedmont, also grow a great deal of blue grass. Scott's Curiosities Abbotsford, can be seen the crucifix of Mary Queen of Scots, Napoleon's pistol and blotter, a tumbler from which Burns drank, Rob Roy's gun, and other curios. begine- By LEMUEL F. PARTON France TW Vv NEW YORK.- 4 ning to thinl another lemencea aladie Clemencea 1 aladier, and she still has Marshal Philipp 2 of the rs of e How Petain Keeps Fit at 82 years couns It was he who said, “They shall not pass’’—on February 5, 1916, to be exact. He was the savior of Verdun, and, in this connection, a deft historian might discover that rope-skip- ping saved France. The gen- eral spent a solid week in an Automitralleuse without sleep, and the London Daily News commented at the time that no man who was not in perfect physical condition could have survived such ordeals. It was suggested that his energy and endurance had turned the tide of war, He y Or Girds for Ballot Bout on his weig His career seems to have been mostly his wife's idea. Born Frank Leavitt, in New York, known as the “Hell's Kitchen Hillbilly,” he did a hitch in the army and thereafter engaged in some desultory wrestling and mauling as a Soldier Leavitt, Nothing much came of it, and he began placidly taking on weight as traffic cop in Miami, Fla. Doris Dean married him and began prodding his lagging ambition. He started gra Boston in 1933, with { Doubled for A a German Film Star promoter took him as Henry VIII on a tour of the Rhineland This was more successful, and brought him to the attention of Alexandre Korda, who needed a double for Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in the wrestling scene. Thus came the famous whiskers, an important de- tail of his wife's clever showman- ship in the build-up of the Man Mountain. It was she who persuad- ed him to take the name Dean and who managed the histrionics which made him a fabulous creature. He was born in West Forty-third street in 1891, weighing 16% pounds » EORGE E. Q. JOHNSON, the slight, self-effacing, bespec- tacled man who sent Al Capone to Alcatraz, is devoting his life to so- cial betterment. He Sent He wants to make Capone to cities less fertile Alcatraz soil for crime, and to that end, would flush city and country chile dren back and forth, interchange- ably, to the benefit of each, he be- lieves, and the nurture of good be- havior. It was as United States at- torney that he deftly enmeshed Capone in a silken spider-web of evidence, laboriously gathered and spun. The next year, Her- bert Hoover made him a federal judge, but he stayed on the bench only a year and then went back to his law practice. | He broke the gangs in Chicago. | His story of how he snared Capone, | told before the senate judiciary | committee, with its tales of trap- | doors and secret panels, was Grade | A melodrama, but he didn’t make it sound that way. He is a modest man, with no instincts of showmen- ship. © Consolidated News Features,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers