RAVAGES OF LOCUSTS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 455 



On these places where they select to deposit their eggs, they are, at times, two and 

 three deep. The depositing grounds comprise a very small surface compared to the 

 whole extent of country in which they exist. Much less than half the number are 

 females or have the power of reproduction. The depositing season lasts two or three 

 weeks, when they disappear and die. I have found on my ranch of 2,000 acres that 

 these beds of deposit do not amount to more than five or six acres. I marked these 

 places so that when the rainy season came I could plow the ground and thus destroy 

 the eggs, and while grasshoppers were produced by the millions on adjoining ranches 

 none were hatched on my place. The conclusion is, that it is not a question to be 

 solved by meteorologists, scientists, or naturalists, but one for the plodding farmer, and 

 that their total destruction is a matter easy, simple, and not expensive. It is a ques- 

 tion of the plow — deep and thorough plowing of all the breeding-grounds. This will 

 require a concert of action on the part of the Government of the United States and 

 the governors of all the Western States. Let there be appointed for each Territory 

 five commissioners, and as many for each State, where they have suffered from the 

 ravages of this insect. The duties of these commissioners to solicit information dur- 

 ing the coming summer, and wherever they appear to follow them and mark the 

 breeding-spots. In the following spring have every spot well plowed ; some kind of 

 crop can be raised that will -paj the expense. If this plan is vigorously followed up 

 for a few years, the devastation and misery produced by these insects will be a history 

 of the past. 



We have never, heretofore, known positively what species did the 



injury in California; but the inves- 

 tigations of Mr. Packard on the 

 Pacific coast last year (App. 10, p. 

 21) render it quite certain that the 

 ravages in California have been 

 committed by the Lesser locust ((7. 

 atlanis) and the Eed-legged locust 

 {C.femur-ruhrum)j which more often 

 acquire the migratory habit than 

 they do on the Atlantic sea-board. 

 The CEdipoda atrox, also, as our cor- 

 respondence shows, is at times ex- 



^ ,^„ _ ceedinglv destructive, but the fact 



Fig. 109.— CEdipoda ATJROX. .. ^ •/ - r, ^ ■ .■.- i . 



that It perished in quantities last 



summer during a prolonged and excessive drought that destroyed vege- 

 tation would indicate that it must be placed in the same category with 

 the non-migratory locusts of the East, which are also occasionally so 

 destructive ; because all the conditions of migration prevailed in South- 

 ern California last summer, and if the species possessed the proper 

 wing-power it would certainly have migrated instead of perishing. 

 There is no evidence that the Eocky Mountain locust ever extends west 

 of the Cascade Eange northwardly, or of the Sierra Nevada south- 

 wardly. The following table will indicate the years during which there 

 have been great locust injuries in some parts of the Pacific coast : 



