NO REAL SIMILARITY EXISTS BETWEEN
PERIODICAL CICADA AND GRASSHOPPER
_*mrz: rt
Above, Periodical Cicada or So-called Seventeen-Year Locust—Below, Real Lo
cust or Grasshopper.
(I repared by the T mted States Depart
ment of Agriculture.)
This is a “locust year," and the
usual popular fear and misapprehen
sion attend. <
People iri that large part of the
United States over which the periodi
cal cicada will appear are disposed,
as always, to apprehend greater dam
age than will occur—many times
greater. Of the remainder of the
United States, large sections are under
another misapprehension, which is that
the insect about to appear is the real
locust that sometimes comes in dev
astating hordes, sweeping across
large sections of country and devour
ing every green tiling. The latter mis
apprehension is, perhaps, the more
widespread and disquieting, according
to entomologists of the United States
department of agriculture. People who
have hud experience with the real lo
cust and the ruin it works never forget,
and the word “locust," even though
it be a misnomer, is likely to be a
signal for dread.
Now, the periodical cicada, com
monly called the 17-,Vear locust—the
insect that Will appear in 21 states
this spring—is not a locust at all. Ii
is a cicada, member of the family of
cicndldae and akin to the dog-day
cicnda, harvest fly, or dry-weather fly.
Tile real locust- the devastating kind
—is u grasshopper.
The periodical cicada, miscalled lo
cust, is strictly an American insect.
Tlie real locust, commonly called grass
'"'I'l" * » v ' 111 ill » 1 I i J I i at J I i l I t 'll l I I ’
world and lias had Us place in history
fur thousands of years. There are
many species. The sehistneerca pere
grina is the one that plagued the Egyp- ;
tians and probably the one on which i
John the Baptist fed. The one that !
has sometimes ravaged the great plains
and other sections of the United States j
is the melanoplus spretus, a related ’
species.
Have Little in Common.
The real locust or grasshopper and
the so-called locust or periodical cicada 1
have very little iti common—nothing, j
In fact, except that both o ■ ■•nr in large
numbers and both occasionally have
[ been used as human food, the former
I mostly by certain peoples of the near
[ East and the latter by the American
Indians.
The real locust is an indiscriminate
j <iitcr, grain fields, corn lields. mead
ows, pastures, weed patches—every
thing fall* before him. Tin1 periodical
cicada or so-called locust is dainty al
: most beyond belief. It was long be
| lieved that tills insect in the adult
stage took no nourishment at all. On
rare occasions It had been observed
with its beak apparently thrust into
twigs, hut It was not until 17 years
ago. the last previous appearance of
the large brood that comes out tills
year, that It was definitely determined
that tills; belief was erroneous. The
“17-year locust" docs eat while in the
I adult stage, but its diet is confined to
the juices of plants, kicked out in very
small quantities and without causing
appreciable Injury to plants.
So far as periodicity of outbreaks Is
concerned, the real locust or grass
hopper is a law unto itself. The hordes
may appear any years or not at all.
The hordes of the “17-year locust" or
periodical cicada appear with a regu
larity that would almost put to shame
a government clock. In spite of their
extremely slow development, under
ground, the multiplied millions of in
dividuals reach maturity and emerge
almost at the same moment and ex
actly 17 years from the date of the
previous appearance—that is, if they
are of the 17-year race. There is a 13
year race of the periodical cicada. But
it is just as regular, just as exactly on
schedule, as the other one.
Real Locust a Nomad.
The real locust is a sort of nomadic
militant. Its hordes, like those of A111 -
la the ITtm or of (lengths Khan, sweep
hither and yon, always on the move,
destroying as they go. The so-called
17-year locust or cicada is a home
body. Stevenson’s lovable character,
"Will o’ the Mill." did not stick so
closely to his birthplace ns does the
periodical cicada. Literally, he abides
always “under his own vine and fig
tree.” The tree from which any in
dividual cicada dropped as a newly
hatched larva 17 years ago is the ex
act tree under which he will emerge
this spring, up which he will most
likely crawl to cast his pupal skin, and
sinlt his love song. In which he will
pass his days of decrepitude, and from
which. >n a few weeks. Ids (lend body
will fall, almost upon the spot where
he—as a larva—fell IT years before
and burrowed into the ground. Where
the periodical cicada cairn* into exist
ence, there he spends his days and
dies.
Injury by Ineocts.
Kvery cron suffers from the ravages
of th. real locust. Only trees suffer
at all from the 17-year locust, and
only very young fruit and ornamental
tr is are likely to la* severely injured.
Methods of preventing or minimizing
this less have been worked out and
published by the United States depart
ment <if agriculture.
The insect itself can accomplish
comparatively little damage, hut fear
of tin* Insect may accomplish a great
dial, particularly if it is based upon
a confusion of the cicada-locust with
:he grasshopper-locust. Men, believing
that the grasshoppers are to eat up
tli'dr crops this spring, might refrain
from planting certain things. It Is
important, therefore, that the confu
sion he cleared up, that it be definitely
understood by everybody that "the 17
year locust In 1919” means the periodi
cal cicada and not hordes of grass
hoppers.
SUPPLY MORE NECTAR
FOR THE HONEY BEES
Sweet Clover Is Recognized as
Valuable Honey Plant.
Every Effort Should De Made to Stim
ulate Production of Substitutes
for Sugar—Authorities
Asked to Co-operate.
(Prepared by the Catted Stales Depart
ment of Agriculture.)
Let tht> sweet clover grow this your
in vacant lots along roadsides anti
along railway rights-of-way until after
the blooming season. Thus provide
inure nectar for the honey hoes and
Lventually more suhstittites for sugar.
Sweet clover, recognized hy beekeep
ers for many years as a valuable hone.'
plant, Ittts been considered a weed in
many places. City, county, and rail- |
way authorities as well as tanners ,
have cut tlic plants before the boom
ing season, thus preventing them from
maturing seed. !
It Is admitted that sweet clover will
make a vigorous growth if unmolested, j
many of the plants reaching a height j
of (i feet, hut it is not difficult to
eradicate, and sweet clover recentl\ i
has become well known m a valuable
forage plant. Thousands ot acres in
some sections of the country ate I'-ant
«si annually to grow forage crops tin *
results have justified the rapidly In
creasing acreage.
The United States must not only in
crease sugar production for domestic
needs, but must ship an increased
quantity to the allies. Every effort
should be made lids year to stimulate
production of substitutes for sugar. In
localities where sweet clover is grow
ing abundantly, city, county, and rail
way officials are asked to co-operate
with beekeepers and see that all well
known nectar-producing plants, and es
pecially sweet clover, are not cut until
after the blooming period. This plan
was practiced in at least one locality
last year with gratifying results, and
it is hoped that all sweet clover grow
ing within a mile* of colonies of bees
will he permitted to stand until after
the blooming period ttiis year.
Sweet clover not only produces an
abundant How of nectar over a long
period hut does not begin to bloom un
til the white clover and alsiko clover
nectar flowing is nearly over, thus
supplying an ahundanee of nectar
when Tew nectar-producing plants arc
in bloom. Owners of bees are advised
to make every effort to bring the Im
portance of sweet clover to the atten
tion of officials in charge of mowing
plants In vacant lots; along roadsides,
and along the rights-of-way of rail
ways. and to endeavor to have tin
mowing of such places where sweet
clover Is growing delayed until tin
(lowering period is past, ny hearty co
operation to this end. the department
says, the production of honey cun be
considerably increased this year.
Oa&roni Pred
b P
3<&ss* 'I
£!
ifiii ■ i
(__I
4
By LLOYD ALLEN,
Special Staff Correspondent.
(Copyright, 1019, by Western Newspaper T'nton.)
UK IN, Italy,—Hero in Turin, which
was headquarters for the American
air service in Italy during the war,
there are many American aviation
officers who believe the Caproni air
plane is the highest type of giant
aircraft developed during the great
war.
Gianni Caproni, the Italian engin
eer who Is the genius responsible
for the Caproni plune, has no hesitancy in giving
the Wriglit brothers and Doctor Langley of Amer
ica the fullest credit for making and developing
tin first practical airplanes and states frankly that
he was a kind of pupil of the great Americans.
Here is what Caproni lias developed from the
American planes invented by Langley and the
Wrights, according to American officers in Turin
who are working with Caproni planes: Caproni
has perfected a machine that will carry something
like 3,000 pounds of weight, five hours' fuel supply,
and with Liberty motors, American made, climb
3,000 feet in six minutes. With a giant machine
like this Italian aviators are making plans to fly
across the Atlantic during the present year.
They may cross from Africa to Brazil or may
attempt the North Atlantic llight. They realize in
Italy, ns well as in France and England and Amer
ica, that the first machine to accomplish the At
lantic flight will win laurels eternal, and you can
; take it for granted that the Italians fully appreci
ate the value of the advertising they will get if
i they cross the Atlantic first. And they have also
: u very high appreciation of the glory they will
I achieve, because, like Americans, they are a people
that love to accomplish the seemingly impossible
for the sheer joy of doing it.
While big Caproni planes are being tested out
in the north of Italy in the attempt to find a ma
chine sound and perfect for the gruelling test It
will get flying overseas, the Caproni plant tit Milan,
an immense institution, is finishing its first com
mercial airplanes, which have comfortable cabins
for the passengers. The interior of an air-cabin,
as completed in the Caproni works, looks very
much like tlie inside of a t nc’y finished stre. t ear,
except that it is somewhat more crowded together.
If you had visited Milan during the winter you
probably would have seen the first Caproni pas
1 Konger plane, a COO-horsepower affair capable of
carrying 111 persons, making its trial flights over
town. The Caproni works are in the outskirts of
I Milan—and the Milanese are justly proud of the
accomplishments of G nnl Caproni.
I talked with Americans who have been taken
up In the Caproni planes. They declared the big
machines start off slowly without nerve-racking
Jars and uftcr running a few score yards take the
air in a stable fashion that goes a long way toward
reassuring the amateur making his first flight.
World-Wide Traffic Predicted.
I’nssongor and freight-carrying Cnpronis are be
ing limit in three sizes. The first type, which is
the one that lias been flown repeatedly over Milan,
is the smallest of the three. In the shops the lin
ishifcg touches are being put on a machine that
w ill carry L’f> passengers. This is the middle si,'.oil
plane. Tin* large machine—the type that will at
tempi llie Atlantic flight—is a monster. It is capa
ble of carrying 100 persons and its passenger cabin
is being nmiio us comfortable us u Pullman cur,
with padded chairs and handsome veneer finishings
for the walls.
The largest planes are fust. They can make 100
miles an hour when going at top speed. Ami it is
expected that on long-distance flights they will
make the fastest railroad trains seem si slow means
of travel.
Caproni believes that within a very few years
the world will be covered with air lines through
which passenger planes will fly and over which
squadrons of high-class freight-carrying machines
will transport mail and certain kinds of freight, at
rates that compare favorably with the charges
made by tiie railroad companies for performing the
surne service.
Islands, now Isolated from the mainlands of the
world, will he easily and regularly reached when
the regime of air traffic gets under way, Caproni
declares.
While the peace conference in Paris creates a
league of nations to handle matters of internation
al Interest such ns freedom of the seas and free
dom of the air, the manufacturers of airplanes will
have the chance to get ready for international fly
ing.
Caproni, like Har.iloy-Pnge in London and like
the French and American leaders in the aircraft
business, feels that most predictions about the fu
ture of aviation are more or less modest, when you
stop to compare the promises of tlte aircraft manu
facturers with their actual accomplishments during
the war.
When the war started, long-distance flights were
virtually unknown. Ju^t as soon as the value of
aircraft was realized, every warring nation got
busy building machines and previous records were
smashed almost daily. During the war aircraft ac
complished time after time what had previously
been considered Impossible. When the war ended,
the allied nations, including America, wore com
pleting an aircraft building program that would
have put such a fleet of bomb carriers in the air
iiut P.erlin, like Mannheim, Coble nr and the Uhlne
^■ji'osrr j7Zivr; ifcT?&ttor'iZ7L?r*
towns, would have been bombed from stations be
hind the allied front in France.
For instance, Gabriele d’Annunzio, the Italian
poet and aviator, succeeded in reaching Vienna
with a Caproni and in demonstrating to the Vien
nese that Italy had a plane capable of dropping
bombs tin them. D’Annunzio did not drop Imfubs
on his famous raid; he scattered thousands of
pamphlets informing the people of Vienna that
they were supporting the wrong government in the
great war. It was an object lesson whose effect
was great in breaking Austrian morale.
Vienna was not quite as far from the allied lines
as Berlin. The (light D'Annunzio made was some
thing less than one thousand miles. But he went
heavily loaded at.d returned successfully.
Caproni Pledges His Future.
“We have vanquished our common enemy,” Ca
proni says, “but our task as aircraft makers is by
no means finished. We must not stop. A perfect
system of airplanes will l>e a wonderful safeguard
to 'any nation as a protection against new out
bursts. on the part of irresponsible powers,
against civilization and humanity.
"Personally I am going to contribute all my
strength to development of the winged giant
which proved the most powerful and telling wea
pon of our just and sacred war.
"Our plant will be maintained at full strength.
We will keep the thousands of workmen who were
busy here under full war strain when the armis
tice ended hostilities. We will not go hack under
any circumstances to that pre-war status, when
tin* workmen in our plant numbered dozens rather
than thousands.”
Caproni came into the air game as an engineer
ing student in that period when the Bangley ma
chine was launched under unfavorable circum
stances and when the Wrights were making their
wonderful flights with the first real airplane. The
idea of flying lired Caproni’s imagination.
“I will never forget.” lie said the other day
"the profound impression created in me on read
ing newspaper accounts of t lie first Wright
flights. From that time until today I have dedi
cated myself to the it(§w science of flying."
Caproni will call his new plane the Wtdte
Eagle. Tlie nam > is linked to a strange prophecy
, ..,1 .1 I. In T « *« 1 »• In Bill* t .
tributod to :m English monk of tlie seventeenth
century, 'l'he prophecy asserted that In the tiveu
tietli century there would be u great world war,
started by the diabolical cleverness of an emperor
of tlie country of Martin Luther in alliance with
another emperor, both bearing on their military
uniforms and on their national escutcheons two
black eagles. It added that civilization would de
feat and throw out the barbarians, whose empires
would be divided into lit! states.
It is Inferred that the White Eagle is Intended
to typify the American bird.
The poet W. Lewis has made the event the sub
ject of a poem which lias been set to music. The
whole was presented with a beautiful allegorical
design to President Wilson when lie was in Milan.
It was a result of his admiration of the poem and
the design so artistically suggestive that Caproui
decided on tlie name of White Eagle for his new
and gigantic plane.
It is as-sorted that the nvlntors who will make
the trip Intend to follow the route of Columbus
across the sea. They will lly from Italy to Cadiz,
thence to the Azores and from the Azores to the
American coast, alighting in the neighborhood of
Washington.
Hundreds of men lie'o lost their lives fa the
dangerous business of trying out new planes and
Attempting to make new records. The list is long
qfattmz: csipitonr
—nml gtorfons. From ttri»
human sacrifice the wt»r%ti m »
golng to be emancipete® lm»
the oUl-tiine methods— rtail
t*i i'w ) L- 4ii-.il ctfin r> t w f t T r me
Italy contributed fc» 11*?
honor roll. Cnptnin Kesatjst?
ntion accident In America, lie war, one- itf tine
leading Cuproni livers, although he was not tn is
Caproni at the time of his death. During his fif*~
time he had made 2.000 flights. Pensuti. antftlH-r
Oaproni flyer, recorded more than ffijSUK,
There are other Italian aviators who have Itawi
thousands of hours—whefi tfce total of their 'ttmaxf
trips is added up.
In northern France the allied airmen. ICtntlsSs.
French and American, died heroically. 1 wlpide
fend their countries, but also, as they flew aufl
worked, helped develop the science of flying.
Today the world lias an accumulated kim* k*dige.
of flying born of snerillce and hard work ; Ihue
great plants equipped to build machine*; bens*
thousands of young men who know how u> fly,
and Is only waiting for the signing of im I»{'*w*a»
tional agreement on International aviation te, U*x$m
an era of trans-oceanic, trans-coutlnental ttigtiis
that will help humanity solve its problem of iraias
portation.
Air Sovereignty Recognized.
Before the agreement is signed, however, um
record-breaking iliglits will in all probability tntar
place. Tlie Atlantic wilt be crossed. Places will
fly across Europe. Military oflieinls will be IwiPt-t?
from Paris to London, from London to Koine. Snmi
England to India even, with fair regularity. i>«3
these in the main will be extraordinary lMgiijsl
The day of steady, woek-in-and-woek-out fSgS.tts
like regular sailings ol ships and departure* of
trains will not come until the nations of Tt*>.
earth have entered Into an aviation covenant. (lav
toms laws, immigrant rulings, and the old regula
tions regarding frontiers must be revaraped, yirol*
uhly by some organization acting for the ionyji* itf
nations.
A report submitted by the commissic^Pttppittfix
ed to consider plans for an internationa air 'rtf
says that the British proposals have beta in lb**
main accepted. An international council wSI i*c
formed as a section of the league of nationw tn
handle all matters relative to aerial navigation.
It has been decided that each nation is entifkad
to sovereignty over the air above it subject to tU*>
granting of permission for the passage of fonip»
ii vin tors
There is to be no discrimination ugainst arsqr its
tion by another, air pilots will be licensed na ms
international basis and there will be interaatSteatS
rules governing the riglit of way of airplane* s«»*i
airships.
With these fundamentals arranged to tfw amtm~
faction of the powers, the era of Hying will l«pn
In earnest. And Caproni will be one, at to'es'd. »<T
the Italian competitors for the building «S jm&
senger and freight planes.
Caproni believes tile business of building piansm
should be separate and distinct from epemtiic
them. Just as shipbuilding is a separate bstuinw
from running an international ship line. So it*
will probaldy figure in world aviation ns u.Itoiiiler
ratb'-r than an operator.
THE LIMIT OFF.
"l»,d your boy hang up his stocking oa tTturist
mas eve?*’
"No. He got a gunny sack and left a note on tt
telling Santy to go as fur as lie liked.”
AS USUAL.
Hobbs—I suppose when you married yonr utSfe
seemed the only woman in the world.
!>ebbs—OH. yes. Tl'.<>ii there began to !*c *s
rapid increase In the imiealatb'n.- iw
Ti unscidpt.