274 REPORT UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
the Signal Bureau. The information should be m minute, complete, 
and prompt as possible. These movements may be likened to those of 
a storm, and the people should receive in advance the danger signal, 
that they might guard against calamity. The "locust probabilities" 
are of far more importance than the weather probabilities to the people 
of the West, and the idea of having them telegraphed over the country 
does not appear half as chimerical to us now as that of having the 
weather foreshadowed did ;i few years ago. 
"In this way the farmers could be fully forewarned of approaching 
danger. We would, in this connection, have the western farmers adopt 
some general plan of defense against possible invasion. The straw 
that is now allowed to rot in unsightly masses as it comes from the 
thrasher, and which encumbers the ground unless burned, should be 
utilized. Let it be stacked in small pyramids at every field-corner, and 
there let it remain until the locusts are descending upon the country. 
Then let the fanners in a township or a county or in larger areas simul- 
taneously fire these pyramids, using whatever else is at hand to slacken 
combustion and increase the smoke, and the combined fumigation would 
partially or entirely drive the insects away, according as the swarm was 
extended or not. 
" In short, we believe, first, that by proper co-operation on the part 
of the two governments interested, the excessive multiplication of this 
destructive insect may be measurably prevented in its natural breed- 
ing-grounds, and that the few thousand dollars that would be necessary 
to put into operation intelligent co-perative plans are most trifling in 
view of the vast interests at stake. With an efficient and properly or- 
ganized Department of Agriculture, liberally supported by Congress; 
with the aid of the War Department, the Signal Bureau, the Post- 
Office Department, and the Indian Bureau, the plan could be perfected 
and carried out at a minimum expense. There is no reason why every 
signal officer, every postmaster, every mail-carrier, every Indian agent, 
and every other government employe in the Permanent region should not 
be ordered to do service of this kind, and made, under the direction of an 
intelligent head, a medium through which to gather the desired informa- 
tion. We believe, secondly, that where the multiplication of the insect 
cannot be prevented in its natural breeding-grounds, our farmers in 
the more thickly-settled sections may, by the use of smoke, measurably 
turn the course of the invading swarms and protect their crops — oblig- 
ing the insects to resort to uncultivated areas. 
"Did the injury continue for another three or four years as it has for 
the past four; were the western farmers to suffer a few more annual 
losses of $10,000,000, such schemes as we have suggested would soon 
be carried out. The danger is that during periods of immunity, indif- 
ference and forgetfulness intervene until another sweeping disaster 
takes us by surprise. The other danger is that the majority of our 
Congressmen and Senators at Washington, representing constituencies 
