54 



deposited generally over this area, what progress could they have 

 made toward collecting them during the season? But let us see the 

 condition after the invasion. A correspondent of the Board writes : 

 " Having traveled over the largest part of our county, I find that about 

 three-fourths of our people are almost entirely destitute of food, fuel 

 and clothing. Some are now living on boiled wheat, and not half 

 enough of that." And the report adds: " S. T. Kelsey thinks that 

 500 persons in Rice county will need assistance." And now we may 

 ask in what condition they were to devote their time to collecting 

 grasshoj)pers' eggs when want was staring them in the face. If a 

 liberal reward had been offered by the State or general government, 

 although they might have made but little progress with the work as 

 compared with the amount necessary to be done to be effectual, yet it 

 would have done some good, and would have afforded at the same time 

 some relief, and I believe that is always best wherever it can be done 

 to apply a remedy which will do good in one direction if it fails in the 

 other. 



Destruction of the larva) and pupa?. A number of methods to 

 accomplish this desired end have been tried and recommended, as 

 rolling the surface in order to crush them, plowing them under while 

 very young, ditching against them, collecting and destroying them in 

 various ways, burning, etc. There is no doubt but either of these 

 methods will effect something, and may well be tried, according to 

 circumstances, and in thickly settled districts, where the larger por- 

 tion of the land is under cultivation, and the force at command com- 

 paratively strong; these means, and some others which are hereafter 

 mentioned, may, and probably will, suffice to hold the enemy in 

 check, especially if the farmers maintain their courage and fight the 

 battle bravely and in concert. In thinly populated districts, and even 

 where the larger portion of the land is not under cultivation, and the 

 force at command weak, the case is not so hopeful, as the surrounding 

 uncultivated sections will furnish a new supply as fast as the previous 

 one is destroyed. Professor Riley informs us that ditching, as prac- 

 ticed in Western Missouri, appeared to be the best mode of defense 

 adopted, and, he thinks, will prove a specific against the young. A 

 ditch of the dimensions he gives, two feet deep and two wide, with 

 sharply perpendicular sides, will doubtless prove an effectual barrier 

 against the young larva? ; but the pupae, though halting for a time, 

 will soon make the leap, and then the column will press onward. 



I have noticed the larger irrigating ditches in Utah, with a water 

 surface of from three to four feet wide, covered with the wingless 

 crickets (Andbrvs Simple/), which were floating hopelessly onward ; 

 but although this was the case, the marching column passed onward 

 in its course with apparently undiminished numbers. And in Utah 

 and Colorada these ditches form but little impediment to the move- 

 ments ot the pupa? of the C.spretus. In* the cool of the morning in 

 those mountain regions, the farmers frequently drive the semi-torpid 

 young into the irrigating ditches, firing straw along one side to catch 

 those that leap the ditch. But among the chief agencies in this work 

 of dest ruction I am disposed to class birds and domestic fowls, and to 

 this end would recommend to the legislatures of the states suffering 

 from these visitations to pass stringent laws stopping entirely the 

 destruction of all insect-eating birds, not for a portion of the } T ear 



