﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 185 



Smoke and scare, and keep it up until the hoppers leave, and if they attempt to come 

 «gain, be after tliem with your smoke. Give them no peace from morning till niglit. 



Sweetened water will measurably protect plants when the Insects 

 are not too ravenous. The same is true of old hay which was exten- 

 sively used to cover and protect favorite garden plants. One of the 

 few efiectual means employed against the winged insects last year in 

 grain fields was to "rope" the fields. This was done by hitching each 

 end of a long rope to a horse and then causing it to be dragged over 

 the grain, thus disturbing the insects and causing them either to fall 

 to the ground or fly off. If continued the locusts get disgusted and 

 leave. While this, and all other methods, are futile as against the 

 vast swarms which continue to drop down upon a country for days, 

 it will prove useful against local swarms when they become fledged, 

 or small swarms which may suddenly alight in restricted localities. 

 They should be driven off as much as possible towards evening, be- 

 cause they then use their wings reluctantly, and they do great injury 

 ■during the night. 



SUGGESTIONS THAT MAY BE OF SERVICE. 



In addition to the foregoing remedial and preventive measures to 

 be taken in dealing with locusts, a few other suggestions occur which 

 may be of advantage. The plants thnt can be grown which are unmo- 

 lested by the pests and which will not, in all likelihood, suffer, have 

 already been enumerated: those which are cultivated are principally 

 peas and other leguminous species, castor beans, sorghum, broom- 

 corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. The locusts, are, as already 

 stated, particularly fond of tansy, cocklebur, and Amaranthus, and 

 especially of turnips : why, therefore, should these not be sown 

 around a grain-field, and periodically sprinkled with Paris Green 

 water, so as to kill large numbers of the young insects ? These last 

 will also congregate on timothy in preference to other grasses or 

 grain, and a strip of timothy around a corn or wheat-field, to be 

 poisoned in the same way, might save the latter. It is also cur- 

 rently supposed that the common larkspur {Delphinium) is poison- 

 ous to these insects, but how much truth there is in the statement 

 I am unable to tell. In going through an oats-field the winged 

 insects drop a great deal of the grain, which, when ripe enough, might 

 at once be harrowed in so as to furnish a good growth of fodder that 

 can be cut and cured for Winter use. The lesson of 1873 and 1874 

 should also not go unheeded. The former year was one of plenty, 

 and corn was so cheap and abundant that it was burned for fuel in 

 many sections where in 1871 there were empty cribs and the farmers 

 wished they had been more provident. 



