Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1881 — GRASSHOPPERS. [ARTICLE]

GRASSHOPPERS.

Efforts Toward Their ExtormbiatiM. The United States Entomological Commission, under the supervision of Prof. Riley, has completed its second report, relating to the Rooky mountain locust and Western cricket This report is mainly supplemental to the very valuable one printed last year. It treats of the beet means of subduing the locust in its permanent breeding-ground, with a view of preventing its migrating to the more fertile portions of the trans-Missis-sippi. The report makes a volume of nearly 400 pages. Prof. Riley oomes to the following conclusions: ' “ A large proportion of the money losses resulting from the locust invasions of 1867, 1869, 1874 and 1876 was the result of a panio of uncertainty as to the future. This resulted in disheartenment, in the abandonment of large tracts of the best farming lands to nature and the locusts. This will nrobably never again happen in the WeeL The knowledge already disseminated, the extent of the population now pouring into the Northwest, the rapid settlement of the Territory of Montana, and the completion of the Northern Pacific, Canadian Pacifio, the Utah and Northern railroads, and the consequent change In the surfaoe or the country due to human agency, will so essentially modify the locust situation that we believe the Weet will never again suffer as in the past. It remains for the people of the Rocky mountain plateau to use such local and general means as their own experience end this commission have suggested in the first and present reports for the State and Territorial and county Governments to make, and execute laws for combined and persistent action during times of general local invasion, and for the prevention of others. If this be dons in the platean region in the future, the invasions of the Western border Mississippi States will tend to become more and more feeble, inconsiderable and harmless, until, we venture to predict, the time will come when the losses from locusts will be only local and comparable with those inflicted bv locusts and grasshoppers in the Eastern Atlantic States. At any rale, the Western locust has already oeased to be a bugbear and object of dread. Familiarity with its habits and history has already taught the pioneer fanners of Utah, Montana and Colorado that with energy its ravages can be lessened if not entirely overcome, and no one intending to migrate West from the Atlantic States or from Europe need to be deterred by the fear of such alarming invasions as have occurred in former years.” One of the preventive measures suggested in the mountain and plateau areas is a permanent system of observations and warnings under the control of the Signal Bureau.