LEGISLATION. 409 



"A good law, once enacted and on the statute-book, may not be called 

 into operation for many years, but would beyond all doubt serve au 

 admirable purpose in the event of a locust invasion. The following are 

 what we conceive should be the essential features of an efificieut bounty- 

 law: 1. The bounty should he paid out of the State treasury; or it should he 

 graded and home equally^ one-third hy the local township, one-third hy the 

 county, and one-third hy the State. 2. The hounty should he immediately 

 available to those earning it. 3. The act should, so far as possible, tend to 

 the destruction of the eggs. 4. After the eggs, the destruction of the newly- 

 hatched locusts should he encouraged by the act, A bushel of the newly- 

 hatched insects will contain thirty or more times as many individuals 

 as will a bushel of the pupse, and, moreover, their destruction prevents 

 the subsequent injury. It would be folly to pay 60 cents a bushel for 

 them later in the season w|ien they are nearly full-grown and have done 

 most of the harm they are capable of doing. The price, therefore, should 

 vary with the season j and while, in latitude 39°, 75 cents or $1 should 

 be offered in March, the price should diminish to 50 cents in April, 25 

 cents in May, and 10 cents in June. As the dates of hatching vary 

 with the latitude,. so the law should vary in the matter of dates, accord- 

 ing to the requirements of each particular State. In addition to the 

 foregoing requirements of such an act, every precaution should be taken 

 to prevent fraud and dishonesty in obtaining the money." 



The laws obliging proper labor will prove more beneficial to a com- 

 munity than the bounty laws, and the labor is best performed, first in 

 destroying the eggs in the fall, and next in destroying the young in- 

 sects after the bulk of them have hatched out in the spring. 



In the more thinly settled parts of the country laws may be more 

 or less ineffectual, so far as the general destruction of the insects is con- 

 cerned, though they will even there be one of the best means of reliev- 

 ing destitution ; but in more thickly settled sections they will accomplish 

 both results. 



The following are the State laws respecting locusts that have been 



passed : 



MISSOURI. 



An Act to encourage the destruction of grasshoppers. 



Be it enacted l)y the general assemhhj of the State of Missouri, as follows: , 



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 deposited in the 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 busliel 

 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 wliich thej"^ 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 AjDril fifty cents per bushel, 

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

 ner as in the preceding section. 



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

 hoppers 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 



