﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. Ill 



action, to accomplish which ought not to be difficult, with our present Grange system. 

 To insure concert of action, it would be well to authorize the supervisors of each school 

 district to call out every able-bodied man and oblige him to work in a general system of 

 destruction as soon as the bulk of the young insects have hatched, and the same would 

 apply equally as well to the destruction of the eggs. 



Many of the wheat fields have been injured principally on the 

 outside. I would recommend to plow up such injured portions and 

 sow to rye. Finally, though insisting on ditching and the digging of 

 pits, as, all things considered, the best and most reliable insurance 

 against the ravages of the young locusts; I would urge our farmers 

 to rely not on this means alone, but to employ all the other means 

 recommended, according as convenience and opportunity suggest. 



LEGISLATION. 



It is a gratifying indication of the increasing appreciation of 

 economic entomology that, while three years ago the mere sugges- 

 tion to enact laws for the suppression of injurious insects would have 

 been, and was received by our legislators with ridicule ; yet, during 

 the Winter of 1876-7, several States have seen fit to pass acts that have 

 for object the destruction of this locust, or the relief of the suffering 

 and destitution it so often entails. Even Congress has at last felt the 

 necessity of doing something to mitigate this national evil, and at the 

 last hour, made an appropriation to defray the expenses of a commis- 

 sion, whose duty it shall be to make a thorough investigation into the 

 matter. I give below the State laws that have been passed: 



MISSOUEI. — An act to encourage the destruction of grasshoppers. 



Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State oj Missouri, as folloios : 



Section 1. Any person who shall gather, or cause to be gathered by any person 

 in his employ, eggs of the Rocky Mountain locust or grasshopper, at any time after they 

 are depesited in ihe earth in the autumn of any year, and before they are hatched the 

 following spring, shall be entitled to a bounty of five dollars for each and every bushel 

 of eggs thus gathered, or for any quantity less than one bushel, bounty at the same 

 rate, to be paid, one-half by the State and one-half by the county in which they are 

 gathered. 



Sec. 2. Any person who shall gather, collect and kill, or cause to be so collected 

 and killed, young and unfledged grasshoppers in the month of March, shall be entitled 

 to a bounty of one dollar for each bushel, and for the month of April, fifty cents per 

 bushel, and for the month of May, twenty-five cents per bushel, to be paid in the same 

 manner as in the preceding section. 



Sec. 3. Any person claiming bounty under this act. shall produce the eggs and 

 grasshoppers thus gathered or killed, as the case may be, before the clerk of the county 

 court in which such eggs or grasshoppers were gathered or killed, within ten days 

 thereafter, whereupon said clerk shall administer to such person the following oath or 

 affirmatinn : You do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the cai?e may be,) that the eggs (or 

 grasshoppers, as the case may be,) produced bj^ you, were taken and gathered by you, 

 or by person or persons in your employ, or under your control, and within this county 

 and State. 



Sec. 4. The clerk shall forthwith destroy said eggs by burning the same and give 

 to the person proving up the same under his hand and seal, a certificate setting forth in 

 a plain handwriting, without interlineation, the amount of eggs or grasshoppers pro- 



