228 MEANS OF DESTROYING THE GRASSHOPPER. 



12. It is necessary to exercise caution in driving out these insects 

 from grass or tilled fields when the grain is already green but not 

 ripe; because such places, even after being visited by the locusts, are 

 sometimes able to recover and to furnish some sort of a crop. But 

 when they pass over fields of corn after the grain is more or less 

 ripened, there is no means of saving it. 



13. No one can be prohibited from driving away the locusts from 

 his field; but it should no less be the duty of the elders of the villages 

 to see that the expulsion of the insects is performed by the united 

 efforts of the community, and not to the injury of any one proprietor. 

 But to observe this is very difficult, and the scaring away of the insects 

 is only permissible where there are large uncultivated wastes or forests, 

 lakes or seas, to which the swarms of locusts can be driven. 



14. As we have useful institutions for securing against losses from 

 fire, from hail, from shipwreck, and the like, it might not be without 

 advantage to have a means of insurance against locusts, in the shape 

 of municipal rnoneyed corporations and hanldng institutions, established 

 in the principal cities of those portions of Russia which are subjected 

 to their ravages. Each inhabitant of the region indicated might make 

 a very small annual payment, and in this manner a capital would be 

 accumulated sufficient to indemnify those who have suffered loss, and 

 to recompense such as have distinguished themselves in collecting and 

 destroying this pernicious insect. Supposing, for example, that the 

 region of southern Russia which is subjected to the visits of the locusts 

 has twenty millions of inhabitants, and that each paid into the trea- 

 sury of the insurance office only one cent a year; this, for the first year, 

 would give |200,000, and in ten years, together with the interest, 

 -would amount to over three million dollars. The payment to sufferers 

 by way of indemnification should be in proportion to the frequency 

 with which the locusts made their appearance in a place, and to the 

 amount of damage occasioned by them. 



15. It may therefore be said, in conclusion, that the most effective 

 and at the same time the easiest mode of opposing the development of 

 the locusts is the crushing out of the young broods when collected in 

 swarms in the place where they were hatched. Consequently the most 

 important thing is to know the nesting-place of these destructive 

 pests. In order to discover them and to point out the course to be 

 pursued by the inhabitants of the villages in their vicinity, it might 

 be well, in the first place, to send skillful persons to these localities to 



imake the necessary researches ; and these, with the assistance of the 

 local elders, might seek out the places where the insects abound, and 

 establish the necessary regulations for their destruction. 



