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Show 1938] Sorenson, Thornley: Mormon Crickets and Their Control 65 not previously known to have been infested by Settlement Canyon extended into adjoining areas Cricket including some agricultural land in the vicinity of Tooele City. bands occurred here and there throughout the Stansbury, Onaqui and Sheep rock Mountains from approximately ten miles southwest of Grantsville, Tooele County, south to the West Tintic Mountains in Juab County. Crickets spread throughout most of the Canyon Mountains from the Sevier River, five miles northeast of Leamington, south to within ten miles of Holden, Millard County, and from the lower foothills of this range -on the Scipio Localities infested by side to Oak Creek and Leamington on the west. crickets during 1936 are specified in table 2. During 1936 crickets caused an appreciable amount of damage to farm Clover, Fool Creek Pass, Fountain Green, crops in the following districts: Leamington, Lofgreen, Nephi, Oak City, ranches on South Vernon Creek, Tooele, and ranches in the West Tintic Mountains. Through cooperative efforts of the United States Forest Service, the Division of Grazing, United States Department of Interior, and county com missions, cricket control campaigns were executed in Millard, Tooele, and Uintah Counties. A lime-arsenic powder was dusted onto the bodies of the crickets while they were clustered together while roosting at night. This dust Cricket was applied with hand dust guns by Civilian Conservation Corps men. dusting began in the Oak City district, May 6, 1936, and continued until June 18. Dusting was done in various canyons of the Canyon Mountains, It west of the divide, extending from Dry Canyon north to Leamington. was estimated by men directly connected with the work and by others in vestigating the efficacy of the dust that from 75 to 90 percent of the crickets dusted in this district were killed. In the Scipio Valley 25 men from local relief rolls spent two weeks driving crickets to prevent crop damage. While clustered for roosting at night and for shade during the day, under windrows of dead Russian thistles which had lodged for years against fences and in ravines, great numbers of crickets were destroyed by application of gasoline to the dead thistles and immediate burning. On May 12, 1936, control work was begun against a cricket infestation covering approximately 23,000 acres on Blue Mountain in Uintah County. In addition to the dusting method of cricket destruction, three-fourths mile of metal fencing was used to divert migrating cricket bands into 15 large pits dug in the ground where more than 200 bushels of crickets were destroyed in approximately two weeks.v Twenty-five Civilian Conservation Corps men spent six weeks during April and May, 1936, dusting crickets in the vicinities of Tooele and Clover. Farmers, volunteer townsmen, and high-school boys also spent several days driving crickets away from, and out of, cultivated fields of these districts. A few seagulls from Great Salt Lake discovered the crickets near mid-June and began feeding on them in Settlement Canyon and vicinity. The number of gulls increased daily until thousands came to feed. The combined ac tivities of all control agencies resulted in the destruction of approximately 90 percent of the crickets in the two districts of Tooele County, specified above. During late April and early May, 1936, third and fourth instar crickets invaded approximately 1,50Q acres of dry-farm grain and alfalfa in the Fountain Green district. Because of the need for immediate execution of control measures when the crickets were discovered and the lack of other facilities, 3,000 3-month-old turkeys were moved to these infested farms on June 2. Within two weeks 95 percent of the crickets had been destroyed. covered in several localities them. The infestation in . 6 Annual Report, 1936. Russell Keetch, agricultural agent, Uintah County. |
