408 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



ruin not only upon themselves, but upon more persevering neighbors, 

 and any law will prove beneficial that will oblige every able-bodied man 

 to work one or more days, either in the fall in destroying the eggs, or 

 in the spring in killing the young insects, whenever the township trus- 

 tees, at the request of a given number of citizens of the township, may 

 call them to vsuch work under special provisions similar to those of 

 existing road laws.'' 



In reference to bounty laws, the experience of Minnesota, where they 

 were in force in some counties in 1875, is valuable, and the State com- 

 missioners did not hesitate to recommend the system after the county 

 trials, imperfect as they were, and commenced as they were, in most 

 cases, too late in the season. It was clearly shown that in one township 

 $30,000 worth of crops was saved by an expenditure of $6,000. Nicollet 

 County paid $25,053 for 25,053 bushels of locusts, but the price paid by 

 other counties was higher; in fact, much too high. In 1877, as may be 

 seen from Mr. Whitman's Eeport (App. I), the bx)unty system was less 

 efiective, and, indeed, proved more or less a failure. ''As a means of 

 defence," writes Mr. Whitman, "it would have proved useless in some 

 cases and needless in others ; as a matter of relief or reimbursement 

 for injury it would have gone in a largo measure to help those who are 

 already repaid by an abundant harvest." 



Governor Pillsbury, in his annual message for 1877, speaks of the 

 Minnesota bounty-law, published further on, in the following rather 

 severe terms : ' 



These acts were approved by me with much reluctance, and not until I had strenu- 

 ously but unavailingly endeavored to influence a correction in the act first named of 

 what I deemed ill-advised provisions of a serious character. Prior to any movement 

 for the practical operation of these laws, I received numerous statements from authori- 

 tative sources in all quarters of the infested regiojas, remonstrating against the ap- 

 pointment of measurers, as contemplated, on the ground that owing to the incalcula- 

 ble numbers of the insects the provision requiring the counties to pay all bounties in 

 excess of the proposed State appropriation of $100,000 would virtually bankrupt the 

 afflicted counties. I therefore deemed it proper to defer action for further knowledge 

 and consideration. Finding upon calculation that an equal distribution of the avail- 

 able fund would afford to each inhabitant of the infested localities an average of but 

 forty cents, a sum too trifling in itself to induce additional efforts for the extermina- 

 tion of the pests, I became convinced that the enforcement of the bounty-law would 

 entail upon counties already impoverished by insect ravages a burden of debt which 

 would x^rove more disastrous than the scourge it was intended to avert. I, therefore, 

 against the wishes of a few localities, but in compliance with a vast preponderance 

 of petitio-^8 from the people directly interested, declined to make the appointments 

 requisite for the practical operation of the law. The decision was justified by the 

 result, for, in the absence of that concerted defense against the insects by ditches and 

 other protective means dictated by exx)erience, all efforts induced by the proposed 

 State and county expenditures combined, would certainly have been unavailing, 

 especially where the destructive swarms were most dense and where protection was 

 most needed from their ravages. The sum thus saved to the State remains intact, or 

 rather the contemplated loan was not effected, the law in exprees terms specifying the 

 exclusive object for which it was to be effected. 



