PACKAUD.J REMEDIES AGAINST THE LOCUST. 673 



them off on an extensive scale. Among the more general preventive 

 measures to be adopted on the plains and prairies of the West is the 

 planting of forests on as extensive a scale as possible. Farms should 

 be hedged in with growth of coniferous trees, willows, and perhaps the 

 EucallptuH can be planted on the plains of Colorado, Montana, and Da- 

 kota, while hard and pine trees can be planted in the State eastward of 

 the plains. Mr. G. 'Si. Dawson has clearly brought out the fact that 

 extensive forests prove an effectual barrier to the flight of locusts, and 

 in the Eastern States as well as California grasshoppers do not swarm 

 as they do in the treeless plains and prairies of the West, the main cause, 

 next to the climate, being undoubtedly the prevalence of extensive for- 

 ests. As the far West becomes more thickly settled and trees become 

 planted, the ravages of the locust will be checked and their breeding 

 places disturbed and diminished. Meanwhile it may be suggested that 

 the State and General Government should foster the planting of forests 

 along railways and highways, and bounties should be given to aid in 

 this direction. Farmers should co-operate through the medium of their 

 granges and other organizations. Moreover, we believe the time has 

 come in this country for legislation to promote cooperation among agri- 

 culturists in dealing with the locust, army and cotton worm, chinch- 

 bug, canker and tent worms, and other injurious insects. The active 

 and forehanded do not need the stimulus of legislation, but there are 

 always enough idle and thriftless members of a farming as well as any 

 other community who ought to be compelled to labor in common with 

 their neighbors in resisting the attacks of injurious insects. When iu 

 one season, as in the summer of 1874, the country loses $50,000,000 from 

 the attp;cks of the locust alone, the matter is sufliciently grave to attract 

 the attention of legislatures. If education is compulsory and vagrancy 

 is a legal offense, surely want of co-operation on the part of the few 

 should be punishable by law. In my first annual report ou the injurious 

 and beneficial insects of Massachusetts, for 1871, 1 made the following 

 suggestion iu this direction : 



While a few are well iuformed as to the losses sustained by injurous insects, and use 

 means to ward off their Mtacks, their efforts are constantly foiled by the negligence of 

 their neighbors. Aa illustrated so well by the history of the incursionsof the army- worm 

 and canker-worm, it is only by a combination between farmers and orchardists that 

 these and other pests can be kept under. The matter can be best reached by legislation. 

 We hav'e fish and game laws ; why should we not have an insect-law ? Wiiy should we 

 not frame a law providing that farmerp, and all owning a garden or orchard, should co- 

 operate iu takiug preventive measures against injurious insects, such as the early or 

 late planting of cereals to avert the attacks of the wheat-midge or Hessian-fly, the burn- 

 ing of stubble iu the autumn and spring to destroy the joint-worm, the combined use of 

 proper remedies against the canker-worm, the various cut-worms, and other noxious 

 caterpillars? A law carried out by a proper State entomological constabulary, if ib 

 may he so designated, would compel the idle and shiftless to clear their farms and gar- 

 <|eus of noxious animals. 



State legislation has also lately been agitated by the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society. 



A large proportion of the breeding-grounds of the locust are situated 

 on the Indian reservations. Could not the Indians be compelled to 

 search for the eggs and bring them in to the Government posts and be 

 paid iu food and clothing ? It would not, perhaps, be a ditiicult matter 

 to compel them to collect both eggs and winged locusts, under the direc- 

 tion of Government officials, and thus habits of industry be fostered, 

 and additional inducements thus be held out to keep them on their res- 

 ervations. 



Locusts may also be eaten as food. Millions of people in the Old 

 World find locusts a nutritious and palatable diet; why should not the 

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