140 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



vested. Wheat, oats and barley are safe. Corn and the gardens are 

 the victims, if they come before the former are sufficiently ripened 

 to resist their attacks, which is not always the case. A swarm of 

 locusts in July or August can ruin a field of corn in a few days, and 

 sometimes in a few hours. Often the fields are only partially de- 

 stroyed. Sometimes the silk and foliage is partially eaten off, and 

 the ends of the ears bared, so that the crops cannot mature. If 

 they leave at this stage of their proceedings, all is well, and if not, 

 their eggs are deposited and the wheat crop endangered during the 

 coming spring. The countless numbers that are hatched out, if the 

 spring is favorable to them, become exceedingly voracious. As 

 they soon commence to move by jumping in one direction, when 

 abundant, they are apt to devour everything in their path. This 

 continues until they are old enough to fly, when they depart for 

 other regions. Generally some corn can be saved in spring, and 

 late planting may entirely escape. Often the third planting of 

 corn during locust years yielded a fair crop. The cereal grains, 

 however, have in some places, and during some years, been largely 

 destroyed during the time between the hatching out and flight of 

 the locusts. 



How to Combat and Destroy the Locusts. — No successful method has 

 yet been devised to destroy the locusts on their first appearance in 

 migrating swarms from the northwest. The injur}', as already 

 stated, which they now do is to the corn crops and the gardens, and 

 sometimes to young growing fruit and forest trees. The eggs> 

 however, which are laid in autumn, have been frequently destroyed 

 by repeatedly harrowing the ground, breaking up the nests, and ex- 

 posing them to the action of rain and cold and birds. Hon. R. W. 

 Furnas, of Brownville, who first to my knowledge devised this 

 method, found it to be very successful. Plowing them under very 

 deep, also destroys great numbers. When they hatch out in spring 

 in destructive numbers, the most vigorous methods need to be em- 

 ployed. One of the most successful ways of destroying them is 

 the digging of ditches around fields across the path on which they 

 are moving. If the trenches are made from twelve to fourteen 

 inches deep, and still deeper holes dug every few rods in the trenches, 

 the young locusts first get into the trenches, then into the holes, 

 where, unable to get out, they can be destroyed by piling ground 

 on them. I have known many farmers to save their entire crops 

 in this way in the very midst of the most infected districts. 



