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ground in the summer ; this is especially true of the present year, 

 and the same strip of country where the locusts hatched in the 

 spring, and where the little that was planted, was mostly consumed 

 by them, is at present exactly that portion of the infested area 

 that is now most nearly free of eggs, although the deposit is abun- 

 dant enough in the counties to the north and south of it. t Nor do 

 the prairies, when covered with grass, present many favorable 

 situations for the deposit of eggs. The experience of the summer 

 would seem to show that almost any bare, sunny spot, where the 

 earth is hard enough or moist enough to retain the shape of a hole, 

 is selected by the locust when she is ready to lay. To what extent 

 the prairies in general are filled with eggs, cannot be told, of 

 course, until the time of hatching arrives, but in the vicinity of 

 cultivated fields the wild prairie has received its share of eggs. 

 Throughout the whole area already given, with the exceptions 

 named, there is hardly a town where the deposit was not so exten- 

 sive by the first of October as to form one of the most serious of 

 all considerations for next year's crop. These eggs are laid some- 

 times in ground so hard as to resist the point of a knife-blade, 

 sometimes in sand-heaps so soft that the next shower washes off 

 the sand and leaves the egg-cones standing like pegs in the ground ; 

 on knolls high and clear of all moisture, on sand-bars in the rivers, 

 and in flats so low as to be overflowed by the next rain. But the 

 most favorable spot of all, everywhere, is new breaking. Grain 

 fields have generally suffered most damage on the sides nearest to 

 new breaking, and, conversely, in new breaking more eggs are laid 

 on the sides nearest to grain fields. In some counties, a large 

 amount of new breaking has been done by non-residents, and will 

 furnish a fruitful source of evil next spring. Of circulars sent to 

 nearly all the infested towns to ascertain the extent to which eggs 

 were deposited during the season, the following, from Blue Earth 

 county, is a sample of all, as to the extent of the deposits, and the 

 spots where they are situated : 



Beauford. — " All over the towu; not much in the stubble, but on all bare 

 spots, such as sheep-pastures, between the rows of corn and potatoes, gar- 

 dens, all places that were clean of weeds, river bottoms, where fed close, 

 timothy stubble and road sides."— J. S. Larkin. 



Butternut Valley.—" It would be difficult to run down a spade and turn 

 the dirt anywhere in stubble, corn, potato fields, meadow, or road, with- 

 out finding eggs. It seems as twenty to one before, and they destroyed 

 everything."— Samuel D. Shaw. 



Ceresco. — " Over the whole township, very thick in most places." — J. M. 

 Mead. 



