160 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



plowed everything, and I do not think there was a hatful hatched 

 on my forty acres) from neighboring farms, and knowing that when 

 they got through they must move m force on my garden, I cautioned 

 my wife to inform me when they commenced on this last. On the 

 18th inst., at 11 a. m., she gave the watch-word, " they come;" so, 

 leaving corn-plowing, I hastened to surround our garden with a 

 board fence, intending to drive the insects around, but to no pur- 

 pose, although the boards were placed at 45° outward, and some six 

 of us were at work. Still they came. We built straw fires next — 

 still unsatisfactory. I had been underdraining, and had some drains 

 still open. Wife said, ' k you will work yourself sick, and all to no 

 purpose." I took a look, and a patch of early potatoes, one-third 

 of an acre, which we had saved, was melting before them. I then 

 saw them march straight for the drain. My impulse then was to 

 burn them in the drain. This I found difficult . The next thought 

 was "pit-falls at intervals in the drain." I commenced digging 

 these, and the locusts tumbled in by thousands, but many escaped . 

 Now the thought occurred that if there was water in the pits they 

 could not jump; so water was thrown in, and the result was a suc- 

 cess . I feel certain that by a judicious expenditure of $50, in ditch- 

 ing around my thirty-five acres, I could have saved everything, 

 while my loss is largely in excess of $1,000. 



The width and depth of the ditch is important, and as ex- 

 perience differed somewhat I have been at pains to get the 

 experience of a large number of correspondents addressed 

 by circular. Many have successfully used ditches two feet 

 deep and eighteen inches wide; a few have made them only 

 1 8 in. x 1 8 in. ; those who have used water found 12 in. x 15 in* 

 sufficient, while th e larger number used a ditch such as I have 

 recommended, viz., two feet deep by two feet wide, with per- 

 pendicular sides. Having been the first to recommend 

 proper ditching in this country, I have felt particular inter- 

 est in its results, and have been in no small degree amused at 

 the fault found with my recommendation, by those who, 

 through slovenly-made ditches or other causes, have not 

 been successful in this mode of warfare. It is less effectual 

 against the newly-hatched young, which more easily crawl 

 up a perpendicular bank than the larger ones, and its effi- 

 cacy will vary with the nature of the soil and other cir- 

 cumstances ; for, in proportion as the soil is loose, and 

 ditches hence apt to fill up by the action of strong winds, 



