ENCOURAGEMENT TO SETTLING THE PLAINS. 
303 
on by M. Fautrat in France, and recently recorded in the Comptes Bendus 
of the French Academy, strongly confirm the belief and the position gen- 
erally maintained, and well set forth in Marsh's "Man and Nature"; 
but it would seem equally true, from some of the most careful researches 
that have been made on the subject, that the breaking and cultivation 
of the soil and planting of other forage and cereal crops have also a 
marked effect, probably as great as the cultivation of trees, in producing 
the same effect. This is the experience of M. Tisserand, 341 and has been 
strongly confirmed recently by Mr. H. E. Hilton, in a paper read before 
the Kansas Academy of Science, on Eaiufall iu its Relations to Kansas 
Farming. He maintains that the actual amount of rain which falls in 
a given district is not the measure of the ability of that district to with- 
stand drought, but rather the amount absorbed by the soil and held 
for the use of plants. The gulf winds which blow over Kansas are as 
humid as those which reach fai'ther east, but the rainfall in that State 
is less because the soil offers less favorable conditions for precipitation. 
He shows clearly that the cultivable area is increasing with the advance 
of settlement, and in proportion as the soil is plowed deeply and the area 
of ponds of water and the cultivated fields of growing crops extends. 
Settlement, therefore, providing it be not purely pastoral, will not alone 
cause a decrease in locust injury by virtue of the number of locusts, 
whether in or out of the egg, that may be slain, but indirectly, by causing 
an increase in tbe moisture of the country, since the migratory locust is 
essentially a denizen of arid regions. In a recent trip to the Northwest, 
Professor Thomas was so deeply impressed with the important bearing 
which the settlement of Dakota had upon the locust question in Min- 
nesota that he communicated to Governor Pillsbury the following views, 
which we give at length, because the same views are equally applicable 
to much of the rest of the plains area: 
According to promise, I give here my reasons for believing that in time Minnesota 
■will be comparatively free from locust invasion. As stated in my verbal communi- 
cation to you, no one acquainted with the history and habits of these insects, and who 
has witnessed their flights as in 1874 and 1876, expects or hopes to find any means of 
suddenly exterminating them or stopping their flights. If this is ever accomplished 
it must be done gradually and by making use of such natural forces as may be par- 
tially within man's control. 
The facts ascertained by the commission in reference to the long series of invasions 
from 1873 to 1877 led me to believe that there was but little hope that your State 
would ever be relieved of this fearful pest. This opinion was based upon the fact of 
their apparent stronghold upon and long continuance in the southwestern portion of 
the State ; and the belief I then entertained, that a large portion of Dakota east of 
the Coteau of the Missouri could never be made an agricultural section on account of 
its supposed arid condition. 
A fact then suspected, which will hereafter be explained, and what I have seen and 
ascertained the present year iu reference to the agricultural capacity of Eastern Da. 
kota have served to materially modify my former opinion and to cause me to hope and, 
I may say, believe, that the day is not very far distant when Minnesota will no longer 
have reason to fear the invasions of the locusts. 
341 Cf. Conclusions of M. Tisserand, as given in the report by John P. Reynolds on 
the State of Illinois at the Universal Exposition of 1867 at Paris, p. 124. 
