STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 175 



in her own good time is bringing in the most effectual checks, and so 

 probably the 'scourge is overpast for the present. 



Other localities outlying Sierra Valley, toward the south and west, 

 were visited and salted by late scattering flocks of the atrocious locust. 

 Whether they were too parasitised to deposit healthy eggs, or whether 

 the region, being new to them, will present suitable conditions for 

 future grand multiplications and then devastations of contiguous 

 regions and the great valleys of California proper, only time can tell. 

 At any rate, as Patrick Henry said, "It is best to know the worst and 

 prepare for it." 



FIGHTING THE LOCUSTS. 



A careful consideration of the ovipositing process, the embryolog- 

 ical conditions, the conduct of the young locusts, the adult characters, 

 the habits and instincts of flying locusts, suggest a few methods of 

 concerted warfare by human agencies: 



1. The eggs are deposited near the surface of the ground, in nearly 

 an upright position. Where the egg deposit is susceptible of harrow- 

 ing, the scourge may be abated by harrowing the spots in the fall, 

 thus breaking up the egg-cases, changing the position of the eggs and 

 exposing them to be floated off by winter rains, or destroyed by other 

 vicissitudes of winter. The writer noticed that where cattle trod over 

 such ]daces in Sierra Valley in the wet season the eggs became addled 

 and dried to mere shells. 



2. The baby locust escaping from the egg with his wonderfully 

 adjustable amnion still upon him is able to wriggle himself up through 

 two or three inches of earth, if it is friable; hence, if plowing of the 

 spots is feasible, it must be done deepbj, and perhaps followed by a 

 heavy roller. 



3. The young locusts travel off nimbly in given directions, and are 

 not easily turned aside; hence they may be entrapped into ditches 

 and buried. 



4. While unfledged they usually hover under dried grass or other 

 such shelter at night, and there remain until the warmest hours of 

 the next day; hence, sometimes straw maybe provided for sheltering 

 them in places where it may be burned, destroying the insects. 



5. The adult locusts are easily frightened off by diligent use of 

 frightful objects and sounds; hence valuable crops may be profitably 

 saved in this manner. 



6. The females often select for ovipositing, dry, open places in 

 meadows where the grass has been cut or grazed short ; hence, 

 machines like the Riley Locust Catcher of the interior might be used 

 effectively. 



But many of the deposits of< Sierra Valley are in hard gravel ridges 

 or beds of cobble stones lying in tough cement; hence, the two first 

 measures, as also the fourth and sixth, are impracticable here and in 

 like situations elsewhere. Secure in these plague spots the insect is 

 found to breed, undisturbed, in vast numbers, and grow to maturity, 

 and in such communities only the grand avenging laws of Nature 

 are able, by multiplying parasites and other enemies, to conquer our 

 formidable foe — the terribly destructive locusts. 



