36 
subsequently harrowed and rolled, than deeper plowing with no subse- 
quent comminution and compression. 
(3) Irrigation.— This is feasible in much of the country subject to 
locust ravages, especially in the mountain regions, where, except in ex- 
ceptionally favorable locations, agriculture can be successfully carried 
on only by its aid, and where means are already extensively provided 
for the artificial irrigation of large areas. Where the ground is light 
and porous, prolonged and excessive moisture will cause most of the 
eggs to perish, and irrigation in autumn or in spring may prove bene- 
ficial. Yet the experiments recorded in the commission reports prove 
that it is by no means as effectual as had been generally believed, and 
as most writers had previously assumed to be the case. 
In fact these experiments gave us very little encouragement as to 
the use of water as a destructive agent, and we can readily understand 
how eggs may hatch out, as they have been kuo wn to do, in marshy 
soil, or soil too wet for the plow ; or even from the bottom of ponds that 
were overflowed during the winter and spring. While a certain pro- 
portion of the eggs may be destroyed by alternately soaking and dry- 
ing the soil at short-repeated intervals, it is next to impossible to do 
this in practice during the winter season as effectually as it was done 
in the experiments; and the only case in which water can be profita- 
bly used is where the land can be flooded for a few days just at the 
period when the bulk of the eggs are hatching. 
(4) Tramping. — In pastures or in fields where hogs, cattle, or horses 
can be confined when tne ground is not frozen, many if not most of the 
locust eggs will be destroyed by the rooting and tramping. 
(5) Collecting. — The eggs are frequently placed where none of the 
above means of destroying them can be employed. In such cases they 
should be collected and destroyed by the inhabitants, and the State 
should offer some inducement in the way of bounty for such collection 
and destruction. Every bushel of eggs destroyed is equivalent to a 
hundred acres of corn saved, and when we consider the amount of 
destruction caused by the young, and that the ground is often known 
to be filled with eggs; that, in other words, the earth is sown with the 
seeds of future destruction, it is surprising that more legislation has not 
been had looking to their extermination. 
One of the most rapid ways of collecting the eggs, especially where 
they are numerous and in light soils, is to slice off about an inch of the 
soil by trowel or spade, and then cart the egg-laden earth to some shel- 
tered place where it may be allowed to dry, when it may be sieved so 
as to separate the eggs and egg-masses from the dirt. The eggs thus 
collected may easily be destroyed by burying them in deep pits, provid- 
ing the ground be packed hard on the surface. In the thickly settled 
portions of Europe, where labor is abundant and cheap, this method 
may be adopted with some advantage, but it will scarcely be employed 
in this country, except as a means of earning a bounty, when, iu the 
