DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE LEGISLATION. 407 



first brood of cbinch-bugs which pass into the corn at harvest time and 

 which scatter over the country, by breeding and harboring in the corn- 

 fields. Not to mention the different means to be employed in counter- 

 acting the ravages of this insect, a diversified agriculture is undoubtedly 

 one of the most effectual. It must necessarily follow that the more 

 extensively any given crop is cultivated to the exclusion of other crops 

 the more will the peculiar insects which depredate upon it become un- 

 duly and injuriously abundant. The Chinch-bug is confined in its depre- 

 dations to the grasses and cereals. Alternate your timothy, wheat, 

 barley, corn, &c., upon which it fiourishes, with any of the numerous 

 crops on which it cannot flourish, and you very materially affect its 

 power for harm. A crop of corn or wheat grown on a piece of land 

 entirely free from chinch-bugs will not suffer to the same extent as a 

 crop grown on land where the insects have been breeding and harbor- 

 ing. This fact is becoming partially recognized, and already hemp, 

 flax, and castor-beans are to some extent cultivated in the States men- 

 tioned. But there are many other valuable root and forage plants that 

 may yet be introduced and grown as field crops." 



Governor Pillsbury, of Minnesota, has a few pertinent remarks on this 

 subject in his last annual message. He says : 



la my former messages I took occasion to urge upon farmers a greater diversification 

 of their crops. The present tendency, I fear, is toward an aggravation rather than a 

 correction of the evil referred to. Stimulated by recent heavy crops, land-hunters 

 have a passion for immense tracts and great wheat-farms. While the cultivation of 

 our idle lands is always 'desirable, this pursuit of a single branch of farming is to be 

 lamented. And I fear that the expectations of great profits of many inexperienced 

 persons who are drawn into the movement by excitement is doomed to disappoint- 

 ment. A wiser course is to look to many sources of profit rather than to one. There 

 is no better country than ours for the raising of stock. Our wool, beef, butter, and 

 cheese are unsurpassed. With the production of these, wheat-growing alternates 

 admirably to the advantage to all the products. The continuous cultivation of a sin- 

 gle crop must eventually exhaust the soil of the constituents for its profitable growth, 

 while it is well known that the finest wheat crops were raised the past year on worn- 

 out and abandoned grain-fields, which had been resuscitated by a couple of years' rest 

 in grass. It seems almost culpable to import corn, hogs, beans, and other products 

 which can be grown here to perfection. 



What Governor Pillsbury says of Minnesota is equally true of a very 

 large proportion of the country subject to locust injury. The advantage 

 of growing more stock is especially obvious in some sections, not only 

 as a means of best utilizing the surplus corn, but to avoid sweeping 

 disaster j for when the locusts are so thick as to entirely sweep oft' cul- 

 tivated cr ps, the wild prairie grass is seldom so badly affected that it 

 will not support stock. 



LEGISLATION. 



*' Too much stress cannot be laid on the advantage of co-operation 

 and concert of action, and legislation both to induce and to oblige action 

 is important. In every community there are those who persist in doing 

 nothing to prevent locust injury. These indifferents frequently bring 



