174 Tlie Rocky Mountain Locust. 



idea of employing soldiers to assist the agriculturist in bat- 

 tling with this pest, may seem farcical enough, but though 

 the men might not find glory in the fight, the war — unlike 

 most other wars — would be fraught only with good conse- 

 quences to mankind. In Algeria the custom prevails of send- 

 ing the soldiers against these insects. While in the south 

 of France last summer [1875], I found to my great satisfac- 

 tion, that at Aries, Bouche du Rhone, where the unfledged 

 locusts (Caloptenus Jtalicus, a species closely allied to our 

 Rocky Mountain Locust), were doing great harm, the 

 soldiers had been sent in force to do battle with them, and 

 were then and there waging a vigorous war against the tiny 

 foe." A few regiments, armed with no more deadly 

 weapons than the common spade, sent out to sections of 

 country that are suffering from locust ravages, might in a 

 few weeks measurably rout the pygmean army, and 

 materially assist the farmer in his ditching operations. 



DIVERSIFIED AGRICULTURE. 



Finally, much can be done to avert the evil we are con- 

 sidering by a judicious choice of crops. There is nothing 

 surer than that the destitution in Western Missouri and 

 Eastern Kansas, in 1874-5, was fully as much owing 

 to the previous ravages of the Chinch bug as to those 

 of this locust. The Chinch bug is an annual and increas- 

 ing trouble ; the locust only a periodical one. Now, the 

 regions indicated, agriculturally, are the richest in those 

 two States, and, for that matter, can scarcely be surpassed 

 in the entire country. Consisting of high, rolling prairie, 

 interspersed, as a rule, with an abundance of good timber, 

 this area produces a very large amount of corn and stock. 

 Of cultivated crops, corn is the staple, and, with a most 

 generous soil, it has become the fashion to plant and culti- 

 vate little else, year after year, on the same ground. The 



