War in the West

From his field headquarters in Denver Jim R. Button was deploying his forces last week like a general in pursuit of a highly mobile enemy. The enemy: billions of grasshoppers threatening U.S farm crops with devastation. Worst danger spots: large areas of Wyoming and Montana, with trouble building up in Arizona.

According to 270-lb. Jim Button, Assistant Chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's division of grasshopper control, this is the worst grasshopper season since 1940. But the hoppers are having a tough time; they are being mowed down in their youth by new poisons, new spreading devices and far better organization among their human enemies.

Bran Bait. Stay-at-home grasshoppers are common all over the U.S., but the migrating types from the range lands do the most damage. After they reach maturity they rise in roaring clouds, fly hundreds of miles and utterly destroy any crop they settle on.

The best way to deal with them is to kill them before they get their wings. Last week Dutton's fighters were spreading poisoned bait by airplane over as many square miles as possible in the outbreak areas. Every day 53 pilots were flying 35 airplanes in relays, as long as daylight lasted.

It took 20 Ibs. per acre of old-style bait (bran and sawdust poisoned with arsenic) to control the hoppers. The newest bait (bran poisoned with chlordane or toxaphene) is so much more effective that five Ibs. per acre is enough unless the hoppers are almost full-grown. The biggest plane in use, a DC-3, spreads 20,000 acres every day. Since there are from 35 to 100 hoppers per square yard in the outbreak areas, a single DC-3 can kill several billions daily.

Egg Count. Dutton's experts start each summers campaign the previous autumn estimating the number of eggs that have been laid just under the ground in the chief breeding areas. Then the division publishes a brightly colored grasshopper map showing ranchers and farmers where to expect trouble.

Next step is to watch the weather and its effect on the young hoppers. The migratory species are semidesert insects that thrive best under dry conditions; a cold rain or a late frost can wipe them out. So can their natural enemies (other insects, birds, etc.)--which the Government's experts keep track of, too.

The grasshopper war is expensive. Dutton's division expects to spend some $4-500,000 of emergency funds this year--and next year may be worse, for grasshopper populations have a way of building up over a series of years. But the effort pays off: the Agriculture Department claims that every dollar it spends on scotching grasshoppers saves $55 worth of crops.

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