DESTROYING GRASSHOPPERS

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2596, 2 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

DESTROYING GRASSHOPPERS

The following is the mode of destroying grasshoppers in Cyprus:— When the English took possession of the island of Cyprus, it was annually ravaged by grasshoppers to such a degree that its crops were hardly worth consideration. In five years, and at a cost of only some 300,000 dol., the insects were almost destroyed, and it now costs but 8000 dol. a year to keep the land free from their ravages. The method used to such n good effect is now beiug tried, with results which promise to be equally satisfactory, in Algiers and Spain. When a column of grasshoppers is known to be approaching, a screen formed of cotton cloth, about 60 yards in length and one yard in width, is stretched in front of it, sometimes in a straight and sometimes in a V shaped line. Along the upper edge of the cloth a strip of oiled or varnished stuff is sewn, over which the insects cannot crawl, and in front of it great pits are dug, the borders of which are encircled by strips of zinc slanting downward. These pits arc soon filled with the grasshoppers, which are trampled down by bare footed natives and buried under earth with which disinfectants are often mixed. According to Lv Gewi Cirit, it is estimated that this year 400,000,000 of grasshoppers were thus destroyed in Algiers by the middle of June. It is needful that the screens should be spread in the early morning, when the insects, benumbed by the night cold, arc unable to fly over it, and that men should be be employed to keep the column as compact as {JO isibli.