65 



receive from the zyemstvos an indemnity, which is usually somewhat 

 less than the real value of the burned crop. 



(3) The larvae are sometimes destroyed by crushing with shovels, 

 rolls, bundles of brushwood, etc. The brushwood drags give the best 

 results. The laborers surround a certain section and drive the insects 

 toward the center. When the circle becomes small a few brushwood 

 drags are drawn along the circumference of the circle, describing 

 circles of smaller and smaller diameter each time. 



(i) The driving of the larvre into ditches and destroying them there 

 by crushing or burning is not effective in the case of adult insects or 

 too young larvae (the latter remaining immovable when the attempt is 

 made to frighten them up by brooms, etc.). Protective ditches used 

 for preventing the insects from passing over into the unattacked fields 

 must be deep and well guarded to be effective. 



(5) Collecting b}- means of bags, sheets, etc.. is also much practiced. 

 Certain trap bags have been invented and are very effective. 



(6) Some apparently successful experiments were also made in 

 destroying the insects by infecting them with the fungus Emyhisa 

 grylli. 



OTHER INJURIOUS INSECTS. 



The zyemstvos have so far confined themselves principally to the 

 combating of the sussliks and of the grasshoppers (including in the 

 latter a number of allied insects), not taking up at all the contest against 

 other insects equally injurious to agriculture, or taking it up only now 

 and then, without regularity or system, in years of very great ravages. 



(a) Agrotis segetum and AgroUs excla/mationis are the most danger- 

 ous and most common enemies of the winter cereals. Their caterpillars 

 are usually called (in Russia) the winter worms. Against these insects 

 a fight is conducted only by the zyemstvos of some northeastern gov- 

 ernments — Kostroma, Perm, Kazan, and others. Only the provincial 

 zyemstvo of the Kostroma government has imposed a natural tax. In 

 this government peasants have to appear with plows, brooms, and 

 shovels for two days; within a radius of 7 versts they get no remunera- 

 tion, but beyond that distance a certain daily wage. 



(//) Anisoplia austriaca (grain beetle). — The Imperial Government 

 proposed in 1879 to all the southern zyemstvos to hold an extraordinary 

 meeting in order to discuss the question of the grain beetle. All the 

 zyemstvos (viz, of the Kherson, Poltava. Bessarabia, Taurida, and 

 Kharkov governments, and also the Don zyemstvo) gave their opinions 

 in favor of the mechanical methods of lighting the beetle, and peti- 

 tioned the Imperial Government to prohibit the use of ropes and to 

 declare 4 the measures obligatory for all the southern governments. 

 The Imperial Government granted the petition, making the following 

 tax, as a temporary measure, obligatory for the enumerated govern- 

 8258 No. 38—02 5 



