X 
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 
the point of abandoning their new homes. At this juncture the Commission went 
into the field, and, by its encouraging predictions and recommendations, did much to 
inspire the people with hope and confidence, and greatly helped to draw westward 
again the emigration that had stopped. 
All this work, however, interfered with needed investigation into the proper range 
and native home and breeding grounds, and some other important questions which 
can only be properly studied during a normal year, f. e., one in which the insect is con- 
fined to its native or permanent breeding grounds. Such a year will be the present 
(1878), for from our investigations we are able to state with confidence that the 
people of the more fertile country west of the Mississippi, occasionally termed the 
border States, will not be troubled with the young insects next spring and summer, and 
probably not for sovoral years to come. 
It is therefore quite important that the investigations be continued until every ques- 
tion is settled that human investigation can settle. 
Fully recognizing the importance and the magnitude of the work yet to 
be performed it was our object to ascertain, as far as possible : 1. The 
relative amount of plains and prairie land that is susceptible of burning 
over in the permanent breeding grounds of the insect, and, as far as 
possible, the proportion in square miles, and the particular locations. 
2. The proportion of more arid land and other regions not susceptible of 
being burned over, but in which the insects may develop. 3. The 
probable cost of burning over such land as will permit of it, and the 
present facilities for, or difficulties in the way of, doing so. 4. The best 
means of destroying the insects in the less fertile areas that cannot be 
burned over. 5. The proportion of laud that can be irrigated and set- 
tled, and the best method of bringing about, as far as possible, the 
settlement of the same. 0. Such meteorological data, especially the pre- 
vailing direction of the winds at different seasons, as bear on the migra- 
tion of the locust. 7. The cheapest and best method of making obser- 
vations on the egg deposits, the hatching of young and the movements of 
the winged insects, and how far the force already in government em- 
ploy is available for the purpose. 
In order to perform this labor we asked for an appropriation of 
$25,000. But $10,000 were granted by Congress, and this only toward 
the end of the fiscal year 1878. It was then too late in the season to 
satisfactorily accomplish, with such limired means, the work proposed — 
a work to be done in a region in which it is difficult and expensive to 
travel. In order, therefore, to accomplish as much as possible with the 
means afforded, Mr. Eiley drew no salary and remained in Washing- 
ton editing and superintending the printing of the First Eeport, while 
Messrs. Thomas and Packard devoted themselves to the task of ex- 
ploration. These facts were set forth in our annual report to you for 
the year 1878, and an additional appropriation of $15,000 was asked 
for, being the balance of the amount originally estimated as necessary. 
This was granted by Congress, but in the bill making the appropriation 
the Commission was charged with the additional work of investigating 
and reporting on the Cotton Worm, and other insects injurious to the 
cotton plant and to agriculture. The operations of the Commission thus 
