PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN MOUNTAIN AND PLATEAU AREAS. 319 
against fire in autumn and then burn the ensuing spring, as we have just 
set forth, could also be mapped out and the maps published for the general 
good and as guides to Congressional action, while an annual report on 
the locust condition and prospects, to be made part of the report of the 
Signal Bureau, could not fail to greatly interest and benefit the people 
most concerned, and indirectly through them the whole country. 
A limited appropriation to the Signal Bureau for this special purpose, 
that would enable the Chief Signal Officer to begin at once the work 
here suggested, under the direction of some competent person or per- 
sons, would, we have no doubt, directly tend to immensely increase the 
practical usefulness of the bureau to the farming community dwelling 
in the vast regions subject to locust injury. Even the observations of 
the individual commissioners and their agents, limited as they have 
necessarily been as compared with those which the Signal Bureau could 
make, have been of great service in permitting, since its organization, 
annual statements and prognostications that have proved correct to a 
remarkable degree ; while, in the event of a repetition of the scenes of 
1873 to 1877, no one would question the value of daily bulletins, such as 
the Signal Bureau might publish with the increased power we have in- 
dicated, as to the movements and flights of destructive swarms. We 
therefore strougly recommend an appropriation to the Signal Bureau 
for this special purpose. 
7. Co-operation with the Dominion Government. — That efforts 
in any schemes for the protection of the western farmer from locust in- 
jury should be made as far as possible with the co-operation of the Do- 
minion Government is too apparent from the facts presented in this 
and our previous report to need any special emphasis or argument. 
preventive measures in the mountain and plateau areas. 
The measures to be adopted to prevent locust injury in the more moun- 
tainous area must be essentially the same as those we have recommended 
on the plains; but, as shown in Chapter II (p. 21), there is in the inter- 
montane area less land adapted to agricultural pursuits than in the 
plains area, and the chief iudustrj' in the former section wdl always be 
that of mining. Dr. Packard, who has more particularly studied the 
problem in the mountain and plateau areas, gives the following report 
of his views and experience as to the best means of counteracting and 
lessening the injury in the mountains : 
"The arable lauds are the bottom lauds among the Rocky Mountains, 
the Uintah and Wahsatch Ranges, which lie for the most part between 
the altitudes of about 1,000 and 8,000 feet. Above this height, owing to 
summer frosts and cold nights, as well as cold storms, the locusts do 
not flourish in great numbers nor arrive at maturity until two or three 
weeks after those which have hatched out in the regions below have 
become fledged and flown away. 
" It is evident then that the breeding grounds of the locust are in those 
