Injury from the Young. 



109 



everything eaten by the locusts, the female chinches, 

 instead of being quietly engaged, unseen, in laying eggs, 

 as they usually are in May, were flying about, seeking 

 plants on the roots of which to deposit their eggs. For 

 this reason, they were more noticeable. Once fully devel- 

 oped in the ovaries, the eggs must be laid, and the great 

 bulk of them were necessarily laid where the young hatch- 

 ing from them were destined to perish, as the result proved; 

 for, injurious as the species had been for the two or three 

 previous years, scarcely a specimen was to be found in the 

 fall. The same will hold true of many other insect pests, 

 which are starved out in the spring by utter devastation 

 of their food-plants ; and such a devastated country is 

 apt to be free from most noxious insects during the subse- 

 quent two or three years. 



The unusual productiveness of the soil in the stricken 

 country was on all hands noted during the year 1875, and 

 was owing, in no small degree, to the rich coating of ma- 

 nure which the locusts left. In the form of excrement and 

 dead locusts, the bulk of that which was lost in spring was 

 left in the best condition to be carried into the soil and 

 utilized. The introduction of new seed from other States 

 was also beneficial. 



Nature generally maintains her averages, and whenever 

 diminished southern winds, drouth and locusts have pre- 

 vailed, the opposite conditions are very apt to follow, and 

 give us plenteous harvests in the place of short crops. 



CHANGES THAT FOLLOW THE LOCUSTS. 



The invasions into a country of large numbers of animals, 

 whether men or insects, are often followed by changes in 

 the vegetation of that country. Certain strange plants 

 are said to yet mark the path through the Southern States 

 which Sherman's soldiers took in their march to the sea, 



