216 



mission. Copies of those reports would accompany this statement but 

 tbey have been long out of print. They may be found, however, in the 

 library of the Geological Survey. 



One of the most important results arrived at is the conclusion that 

 an extensive system of irrigation upon a scale of greater magnitude 

 than any which can be undertaken by a pioneer population will be not 

 only necessary to the carrying on of agricultural operations within the 

 belt of territory mapped out as the permanent breeding grounds of the 

 locust, but with the prime result that such an introduction of diversified 

 agriculture into these regions will abolish the conditions necessary to 

 a permanent reproduction of the species, and will consequently reduce 

 the danger of the appearance of destructive migratory swarms to a min- 

 imum. The one fact that, according to the careful statistics gathered 

 by the Commission, the loss from this i)est during the years 1874 to 1877 

 amounted to upwards of two hundred million dollars, is a mighty argu- 

 ment for the expenditure of the sums whijch it is proposed to devote to 

 the purpose which Senator Stewart's committee is now investigating. 

 The words which the Commission have dev^oted to the discussion of this 

 point are best quoted, and I give in the following pages extracts from 

 the first and second reports above referred to. 



It is evident, therefore, that the final and complete solution of the locust problem 

 depends to a certain extent upon the possibility of modifying, to some degree at least, 

 the aridity of the great plains of the Northwest, which undoubtedly form the native 

 breeding grounds of these insects. 



By most persons this will be considered equivalent to saying that the locust problem 

 will never be solved. It would scarcely be proper for us here to enter into a discus- 

 sion of the question of the possibility of modifying the condition of the dry area, but 

 we can not refrain from placing upon record our protest against any such conclusion 

 as this. That man, with a mind that can bring art, science, and mechanics to the 

 perfection now visible on every hand, must be forever unable to convert the desert 

 into fertile fields or to redeem the waste places of earth, we can not believe unless we 

 are shown that the moisture which once supplied these areas has forever taken its 

 departure from our globe. 



To what extent these dry areas of the west can be supplied with water and ren- 

 dered fertile must be determined by those who are proficient in this particular branch 

 of science ; but that large sections can be redeemed by proper efforts, if made on a 

 scale of sufiicient magnitude, we have no doubt. 



By utilizing all the water that flows down from the mountains for the purposes of 

 irrigation; by collecting in reservoirs the winter supply and distributing ic in the 

 growing season, a very large section of these plains might belbronght under cultiva- 

 tion, aud extensive forests grown where now the surface is naked and barren. Every 

 field brought into cultivation, every grove planted, is just so fiir a step toward the 

 ultimate solution of the locust problem ; and the nearer these can be brought to their 

 native home the more eft'ectual will they be in rooting them out. If extensive 

 efforts in this direction were made in British America, north of Montana, also in 

 eastern Montana, western Dakota, and the regions around the Black Hills, it would 

 not only be of immense benefit in supplying new agricultural fields for emigrants 

 from the locust problem ; it would also be a most effectual method of settling the 

 Indian question in this region. Just what can be done in the way of redeeming 

 these areas we can not say, but when their settlement depends upon it, and the wel- 



