420 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



tLey might guard against calamity. The " locust probabilities" are of 

 far more importance than the weather probabilities to the people of the 

 West, and the idea of having them telegraphed over the country does 

 not appear half as chimerical to us now, as that of having the weather 

 foreshadowed did a few years ago. 



In this way the farmers could be fully forewarned of approaching 

 danger. We would, in this connection, have the Western farmers adopt 

 some general plan of defense against possible invasion. The straw that 

 is now allowed to rot in unsightly masses as it comes from the thrasher, 

 and which encumbers the ground unless burned, should be utilized. Let 

 it be stacked in small pyramids at every field-corner, and there let it 

 remain until the locusts are descending upon the country. Then let the 

 farmers in a township or a county or in larger areas simultaneously fire 

 these pyramids, using whatever else is at hand to slacken combustion 

 and increase the smoke, and the combined fumigation would partially 

 or entirely drive the insects away, according as the swarm was extended 

 or not. 



In short, we believe, first, that by proper cooperation on the part of 

 the two governments interested, the excessive multiplication of this 

 destructive insect may be measurably prevented in its natural breeding- 

 grounds, and that the few thousand dollars that would be necessary to 

 put into operation intelligent co-operative plans are most trifling in 

 view of the vast interests at stake. With an efficient and properly 

 organized Department of Agriculture, liberally supported by Congress j 

 with the aid of the War Dep:irtment, the Signal Bureau, the Post-Office 

 Department, and the Indian Bureau, the plan could be perfected and 

 carried out at minimum expense. There is no reason why every signal 

 officer, every postmaster, every mail-carrier, every Indian agent, and 

 every other government employe in the Permanent region should not be 

 ordered to do service of this kind, and made, under the direction of an 

 intelligent head, a medium through which to gather the desired informa- 

 tion. We believe, secondly, that where the multiplication of the insect 

 cannot be prevented in its natural breeding-grounds, our farmers in the 

 more thickly- settled sections may, by the use of smoke, measurably turn 

 the course of the invading swarms and protect their crops — obliging the 

 insects to resort to uncultivated areas. 



Did the injury continue for another three or four years as it has for 

 the past four J were the Western farmers to suffer a few more annual 

 losses of $40,000,000, such schemes as we have suggested would soon 

 be carried out. The danger is that during periods of immunity, indiffer- 

 ence and forgetfulness intervene until another sweeping disaster takes 

 us by surprise. The other danger is that the majority of our Congress- 

 men and Senators at Washington, representing constituencies never 

 troubled with this grievous pest, have not, and cannot well have, any 

 just conception of the magnitude of its devastations, and are conse- 

 quently without due appreciation of the importance of the subject. 



