362 EEPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



lected may easily be destroyed by burying them in deep pits, providing 

 the ground be packed hard on the surface. In the thickly-settled por- 

 tions of Europe, where labor is abundant and cheap, this method may 

 be adopted with some advantage, but it will scarcely be employed in 

 this country, except as a means of earning a bounty, when, in the more 

 thickly-settled sections, it will prove beneficial and give employment to 

 young people and others who have nothing else to do. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG OR UNFLEDGED LOCUSTS. 



It is with some degree of pride that we point to the fact that this part 

 of the locust problem is solved. The experience of 1877 has added much 

 to our knowledge of the practical and feasible ways of destroying the 

 young locusts, and has firmly established the fact which we had pre- 

 viously maintained, that, with proper means, effort, and co-operation, 

 the farmer, in the more fertile and settled portions of the country liable 

 to their injury, may successfully cope with them j that, in short, he can 

 protect his crops against them with about as little labor and expense as 

 he must annually employ to protect most of these same crops from weeds. 

 Farmers themselves were surprised at what could be accomplished by 

 well-directed, intelligent effort ; and it was the almost universal testi- 

 mony that there need be, in future, no serious fear of the young insects, 

 even where little effort has previously been made to destroy the eggs. 

 In the destruction of the young, no methods that will not sweep them 

 away in wholesale fashion have any value for our western farmers, how- 

 ever valuable they may be to the owner of a small flower or truck gar- 

 den. It is for this reason that we have been able to profit so little by 

 European methods, and have had to invent means suitable to our broad 

 western fields and the extensive nature of our farming operations. The 

 best that most European authors can advise is the killing of the insects 

 with flattened implements or brush j while Gerstacker and other writers 

 devote page after page to prove the superiority over other methods of 

 catching the insects with hand-nets — a method which, while doubtless 

 of some utility in dense German settlements, would prove absolutely 

 futile on our large and scattered prairie-farms and against the excessive 

 numbers of the pests which our farmers have to deal with. While, 

 therefore, we shall mention all available means that have been or may 

 be employed, we shall devote more especial attention to those which are 

 useful in a broad and general way in the field. 



Experience has shown that the results of any particular measure will 

 vary in different regions, dependent, to some extent, upon the nature of 

 the soil, the condition of the crops, and the general characteristics of 

 indigenous vegetation. Circumstances may also render some particular 

 measure available and profitable to one farmer where it would be un- 

 profitable to another. For convenience, the means of accomplishing the 

 desired result may be classified into: 1. Burning. 2. Crushing. 3. 

 Trapping. 4. Catching. 5. Use of destructive agents. 



