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evil when it has taken root here. It is no longer a question that 

 that is a state matter which concerns more or less intimately forty- 

 four out of seventy-one counties. 



But the matter does not end with the state. After all that can 

 be done by legislation, success depends purely upon how much 

 each man is willing to do with his own hands. Without united 

 effort to meet the evil wherever it occurs, and with every means 

 or instrument that lie at our disposal, without a determination to 

 plow and sow and defend, each and every man on his own domain, 

 nothing will be done that is worth legislating about. No effort is 

 worth securing that does not recognize the need of the broadest 

 possible exertion, or offer the largest possible assurance of ultimate 

 success. 



BOUNTY. 



The conference at Omaha, while recognizing the necessity for 

 united action, both of the state and of every individual through- 

 out the present infested regions, resolved "That it will be wise 

 and politic for the legislatures of each of the states and territories 

 most deeply interested in the locust question, to enact a state 

 bounty law," etc. As there is in the minds of many a grave 

 doubt as to the expediency of offering any bounty at all which 

 shall take the form of a specified amount to be paid per bushel for 

 locusts, and as it will be difficult to enact any law which shall, 

 be equally adapted to the thickly settled counties and the thinly 

 settled frontier, I have included in circulars to the different towns 

 the question, "If a bounty were offered in your township, next 

 spring, for the destruction of locusts, could it be made to any 

 extent successful in saving crops ?" and "How small a price per 

 bushel would accomplish the purpose?" The farmers ought to 

 know at least as well as any one the capabilities of their own 

 communities, and it is some proof of the sincerity with which they 

 have made their replies, that in counties where the locust is com- 

 paratively unknown, it is answered that they are unable to give an 

 opinion ; in the sparsely settled counties, the doubt is often 

 strongly expressed that such a bounty would be useless for the 

 purpose stated ; while in those counties where the locusts have 

 hatched'of late years or where the bounty system has already been 

 applied, it is considered that a bounty per bushel would undoubt- 

 edly accomplish the object named. The amount is generally placed 

 at one dollar per bushel, seldom more, and often one-third or one- 

 fourth of that amount ; and while one dollar per bushel might be 

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