﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 139 



3. The act should, as far as possible, tend to the destruction of the Eggs. Barring ex- 

 ceptional cases, where shallow plowing can be resorted to, the collecting of the eggs 

 will be tedious. It will be safe, therefore, to oflFer a pretty large inducement to collect 

 them, and $4 to $6 a bushel would not be too much, and would give remunerative em- 

 ployment to young people through the mild weather of winter and in late Fall and 

 early Spring, 



-1. After the eggs, the destruction of the neivly hatched Locusts should be encouraged 

 by the Act. A bushel of the newly hatched insects will contain thirty or more times as 

 many individuals as will a bushel of the pupai, and, moreover, their destruction pre- 

 vents the subsequent injury. It would be folly to pay sixty cents a bushel for them 

 later in the season when they are nearly full-grown and have done most of the harm 

 they are capable of doing. The price offered, therefore, should vary with the season, 

 and while sixty or seventy-live cents should be offered in March, the price should di- 

 minish to fifty-cents in April, twenty-five cents in May and ten cents in June. In addi- 

 tion to the foregoing requirements of such an act, every precaution should be taken ta 

 prevent fraud and dishonesty in obtaining the bounty. 



In order to get the opinions of our own farmers who had expe- 

 rience last Spring as to the value of a bounty, I submitted to many 

 the following question: "Do you not think that a bounty of fifty 

 cents a bushel, offered by the State for the young insects when they 

 were hatching, would have given employment and means to a large 

 number of persons ATho, on account of the locust ravages, were with- 

 out work ; and would not such a bounty have induced so general a 

 destruction of the insects during the first fortnight of their hatching 

 as to virtually have prevented the subsequent devastation and suffer- 

 ing?" Of over a hundred answers to this question, the opinions are 

 almost unanimously affirmative. Five of the writers believe that it 

 would have availed little last Spring, because the people had no 

 anticipation of the subsequent ravages, but that it would work well 

 in future ; and three doubt whether any human effort would have 

 saved their crops. The experience of Minnesota is valuable here, and 

 the State Commissioners do not hesitate to recommend the system 

 after the county trials, imperfect as they were, and commenced as they 

 were in most cases, too late in the season. It was clearly shown that 

 in one township $30,000 worth of crops was saved by an expenditure 

 of $6,000. Nicollet county paid $25,053.00 for 25.053 bushels of locusts, 

 but the price paid by other counties was higher : in fact, much too 

 high. The prices I have suggested are all sufficient; for we must not 

 forget that aside from the bounty inducement, the people who appre- 

 ciate the situation must feel that they are working for self-protection, 

 and know that it is folly to waste labor in any other way. A law such 

 as I have suggested, once enacted and on our Statute books, might 

 not be called into operation for many years ; but would beyond all 

 doubt serve an admirable purpose in the event of a repetition of the 



