﻿140 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



-evils of 1874 and 1875. Under its provisions, I am confident that in the 

 event of another invasion, during the milder months of Fall and 

 Spring, between the laying and hatching periods, thousands of bushels 

 of eggs will be collected. Suppose $50,000 or $100,000 had thus been 

 taken out of the State treasury last Winter or Spring in the way of 

 bounties. The money would have been well earned and distributed 

 among those who most needed it. The injury done later in the Spring 

 would have been measurably or entirely averted, for every bushel of 

 eggs is equivalent to the future destruction of at least 300 acres of any 

 young crop, and each county comprises on an average not much over 

 500,000 acres. The smaller bounty for the young hoppers would have 

 worked just as beneficially. It would have given employment to 

 thousands who had nothing to do, and stayed the excuse for raiding 

 which idlers and desperate characters made. Wherever private par- 

 ties ofi'ered even a bounty of 50 cents per bushel for these young, they 

 «oon had to desist on account of the numbers brought them; which 

 shows how effectual a State bounty would have been. 



In the more thinly settled parts of the country to the west of us, 

 a State bounty system may be more or less ineffectual, so far as the 

 general destruction of the insects is concerned, though it will even 

 there be one of the best means of relieving destitution ; but in our 

 more settled counties it will accomplish both ends. 



SUGGESTIONS. 



As a means of assisting farmers in the destruction of the unfledged 

 locusts by trenches and in other ways I would also urge the employ- 

 ment of military force, a large amount of which, in times of peace, 

 could be ordered into the field at short notice. As stated in my paper 

 read at Detroit: "To many, the idea of employing soldiers to assist 

 the agriculturist in battling with this pest, may seem farcical enough, 

 but though the men might not find glory in the fight, the war — unlike 

 most other wars — could only be fraught with good consequences to 

 mankind. In Algeria the custom prevails of sending the soldiers 

 against these insects. While in the south of France last summer, I 

 found to my great satisfaction, that at Aries, Bouche du Rhone, where 

 the unfledged locusts {Caloptenus Italicus, a species closel}'' allied to 

 our Rocky Mountain locust), were doing great harm, the soldiers had 

 been sent in force to do battle with them, and were then and 

 there waging a vigorous war against the tiny foes. A few regiments 

 armed with no more deadly weapons than the common spade, sent 

 out to the suff"ering parts of Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska last 

 8pring, might in a few weeks have measurably routed this pygmean 

 army, and materially assisted the farmer in his ditching operations. 



