﻿142 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



of action the supervisors of each school district be authorized to call 

 out every able bodied man and oblige him to work in a general system 

 of destruction as soon as the young insects commence to travel. 



In this connection it is also very obvious that our Signal Service 

 might be made the means of giving important assistance to the farm- 

 ers of the West, by warning them of coming danger. If, as I believe, 

 the disastrous swarms which reach our State come from the extreme 

 northwest, there is no reason why, by increasing the number of signal 

 stations in that region the movements of large swarms should not be 

 daily recorded, and the farmers to the east and southeast be apprised 

 of their probable coming for weeks in advance. The people might 

 not, it is true, greatly benefit by the information, except in preparing 

 and providing for the possible contingency ; but by thus recording 

 the movements of swarms we shall in a few years come to know more 

 about the native breeding places and habits of the species, and as the 

 Bureau perfects its work, we may, through it, leirn the Fall before, 

 when the insects have become unduly multiplied or have laid enor- 

 mous quantities of eggs over large areas in their native habitat, and 

 when, in consequence, an invasion the following year is probable : in 

 which event a larger proportion of small giains and other crops that 

 escape the ravages of the Fall swarms can be planted in the threat- 

 eiied country. 



The same plan of allowing the grass to remain unburned until 

 the young hatch in Spring, suggested for the destruction of the insect 

 in its native home, will of course work equally well when the eggs 

 are laid in the country to the east and in our own counties. 



As to the best means of disposing of the slaughtered locusts, the 

 easiest and generally employed are burning and burying. Yet the 

 insects might be turned to good advantage as manure, or sun-dried 

 and preserved in cakes to feed to hogs, poultry, etc., and where large 

 quantities are destroyed under a bounty system, some such means of 

 making the most of them should be considered. 



Finally, much can be done to avert the evil we recently suffered 

 from, by a judicious choice of crops ; but I will consider this matter 

 under the head of 



LESSONS OF THE YEAR. 



There is nothing surer than that the destitution in our western 

 counties last Spring was as much, if not more, owing to the previous 

 ravages of the Chinch Bug than to those of this locust. 



The Chinch Bug is an annual and increasing trouble ; the locust 

 only a periodical one. Now, the counties ravaged are among the 

 richest agricultural counties in the State, and, for that matter, can 



