168 The Rocky Mountain Locust. 



impossible. Man is powerless before the mighty host. 

 Special plants, or small tracts of vegetation may be saved 

 by perseveringly driving the insects off, or keeping them 

 off by means of smudges, as the locusts avoid smoke; or 

 by rattling or tinkling noises constantly kept up. Long 

 ropes perseveringly dragged over a grain field, have been 

 used to good advantage. Great numbers may be caught 

 and destroyed by bagging and crushing, as recommended 

 for the new-fledged ; and I would more particularly urge 

 their destruction in this way late in the season, when, 

 early and late in the day, they are comparatively sluggish: 

 but as a rule, the vast swarms from the West or Northwest 

 will have everything their own way. In the latitude of 

 St. Louis, these invading swarms usually come too late to 

 affect the small grains, or to materially affect corn ; but 

 farther north they are more to be dreaded, and the ex- 

 perience of Minnesota and Dakota farmers teaches that 

 one of the best ways of avoiding their injuries is to grow 

 such crops as will mature early. 



Mr. S. T. Kelsey succeeded in saving many of his young 

 forest trees in Kansas, in 1874, by perseveringly smudging 

 and smoking them. 



He gives his experience in the following words, in the 

 Kansas Farmer , Aug. 26, 1874 : 



At first we tried building fires on the ground, but it was not suc- 

 cessful. The smoke would not go where we wanted it to. We then 

 tried taking a bunch of hay and, holding it between sticks, would 

 fire it, and then, passing through the field on the windward side, 

 would hold it so that the smoke would strike the grasshoppers. We 

 would soon have a cloud of hoppers on the wing, and by following 

 it up would, in a short time, clear the field. We have thus far 

 saved everything that was not destroyed when we commenced fight- 

 ing them ; and while I do not give this as an infallible remedy, not 

 having tried it sufficiently, yet it does seem to me, from what I 

 have seen of it, that one good active man who would attend right 

 to it, could protect a twenty-acre field or a large orchard. But to be 

 successful, one must attend right to the business. 



