DESTRUCTION OF THE YOUNG OR UNFLEDGED 



LOCUSTS. 



ARTIFICIAL MEANS. 



This bulletin may reach many farmers in the Northwest before the 

 locust-eggs have all hatched. The only feasible way of now destroy- 

 ing these is to plow them deeply under where that is possible. The 

 plowing will be effectual according as the soil is porous or tenacious, 

 and according as the surface is afterward compressed by harrowing and 

 rolling. All other things being equal, a plowihg of 4 to 6 inches 

 will prove more effectual, if the ground be subsequently harrowed and 

 rolled, than deeper plowing with no subsequent comminution and com- 

 pression. We advise the farmers in the locust region to supply them- 

 selves with early-ripening seed-corn, and to prepare to grow more 

 leguminous and tuberous crops than is the custom. But as the principal 

 struggle during the next two months will be with the young insects, we 

 devote this bulletin more particularly to the best means of overcoming 

 them. 



Heavy rolling, where the surface of the soil is sufficiently firm and 

 even, destroys a large number of these newly-hatched young, but is 

 most advantageously employed when they are most sluggish and inclined 

 to huddle together, as during the first eight or ten days after hatching, 

 and in the mornings and evenings subsequently. They then drive almost 

 as readily as sheep, and may be burned in large quantities by being 

 driven into windrows or piles of burning hay or straw. They may also 

 be killed with kerosene, and by means of flattened beating implements ; 

 wooden shovels being extensively used for this purpose in Europe. 



But to protect the crops and do battle to these young locust armies, 

 especially where, as was the case in much of the ravaged country in 

 1875, there is little or no hay or straw to burn, the best method is 

 ditching. A ditch 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep, with perpendicular sides, 

 offers an effectual barrier to the young insects. They tumble into it 

 and accumulate, and die at the bottom in large qnantities. In a few 

 days the stench becomes great, and necessitates the covering up of the 

 mass. In order to keep the main ditch open, therefore, it is best to dig 

 pits or deeper side ditches at short intervals, into which the 'hoppers 

 will accumulate and may be buried. Made around a field about hatch- 

 ing-time, few 'hoppers will get into that field till they acquire wings, 

 and by that time the principal danger is over, and the insects are fast 

 disappearing. If any should hatch within the inclosure, they are easily 

 driven into the ditches dug in different parts of the field. The direction 

 of the apprehended approach of the insects being known from their 

 hatching locality, ditching one or two sides next to such locality is 

 generally sufficient, and when farmers join they can construct a long 

 ditch which will protect many farms. 



We have not a doubt but that with proper and systematic ditching 

 early in the season, when the insects first hatch, nearly everything can 

 be saved. Where water can be let into the ditches so as to cover the 

 bottom, they may be made shallower, and still be effective. 



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