666 The Rocky Mountain Locust. [ November, 
English rook may be attended with benefit, and the commission 
of which I am a member will try the experiment. The destruc- 
tion of the eggs is of the utmost importance. 
The experience of the present year has proved, what I have 
always insisted on, that in the more thickly-settled portions of 
the country, by proper organization and intelligent effort, man 
may master the young insects. Men of large experience admit 
that a crop of young locusts is not more difficult to cope with than 
a crop of weeds. It is different with the winged insect, and the 
question is: “ Can anything be done to protect our farmers from 
the disastrous flying swarms?” At first view it would seem 
hopeless. Yet there is already a partial answer to the question. 
There isa popular notion that this pest breeds in and comes from 
- sandy, desert countries. It isa popular error. The insect can- 
not live on sand, nor does it willingly oviposit in a loose, sandy 
soil. It does not thrive on cacti and sage-bush. It flourishes 
most on land clothed with grass, in which, when young, it can 
huddle and shelter. It can multiply prodigiously on those plains 
only that offer a tolerably rich vegetation, — not rank and hu- 
mid as in Illinois, but short and dry,—such as is found over 
much of the plains region of the Northwest, already referred to. 
Now the destruction of the eggs, which is so practicable and ef- 
fectual in settled and cultivated sections, is out of the question in 
those vast unsettled prairies; but the destruction of the young 
locusts is possible. ‘Those immense prairies are not only suscep- 
tible of easy burning, but it is difficult to prevent the fire from 
sweeping over them. Now some system of preventing the exten- 
sive prairie fires that are common in that country in fall, and 
then subsequently firing the prairie in the spring, after the bulk 
of the young hatch, and before the new grass gets too rank, 
would be of untold value if it could be adopted. At first blush 
such a proposition seems utopian, but the more I study the ques- 
tion, and the more I learn of those breeding-grounds, the more 
feasible the plan grows in my mind. The Dominion government 
has, fortunately, a well-organized mounted police force which con- 
stantly patrols through the very regions where the insects breed, 
north of our line. This force is intended to see that the peace 15 
kept, to watch the Indians, to enforce the laws, and perform 
other police duties. It could-be utilized, without impairing 16 
efficiency as a police force, in the work I have indicated ; oF it 
might be augmented for that same work. I have conversed wit 
the Canadian ministers of agriculture and of the interior, and 
