AEROPLANES TO KILL LOCUSTS

Evening Star, Issue 22382, 4 July 1936, Page 2

AEROPLANES TO KILL LOCUSTS

Twenty-five nations have declared war on the locust, writes John Stevens, in the * Daily Hail.’ A conference was opened in Cairo, when delegates from the various countries concerned met to discuss the latest methods in combating that extraordinary plague. This grasshopper is costing the world from £1,000,000 to £2,000,000 every year. In one year alone SoAith Africa spent £1,250,000 in her. fight against the locuat. These totals are symbolic of the havoc the insect causes. Great swarms of locusts fill the sky in Africa and other tropical regions. The younger locusts cannot yet fly; they march over tao country, literally eating their way. Even rivers do not baffle them, for a bridge is formed by the drowned bodies of those that lead the way. A year and a-lialf ago a tremendous battle was waged in South Africa against the insect; 30,000 square miles of territory were desolated. Gangs of men, working night and day, killed thousands upon thousands, yet more and more kept taking their place. The locusts destroy wheat, sugar canes, tea, maize, and other crops, leaving nothing but the bare stalks. In fact, at the end of 193-1 they had caused a loss of 30,000 tons in the South African sugar crop alone, while the planters had to out down a large amount of cane which would have formed last year’s crop. The war against the locusts is being pursued with many of the weapons or modern warfare. Poison gas is being used with great effect. Patent poisons of many kinds are employed. Aeroplanes have been used to fly over the swarms and spray them witu poisons More latterly, autogiros have been found even more effective, as they can hover over the insects. The choice of a suitable poison is no easy matter. It must be completely innocuous where crops and botn wild and domestic animals are concerned, and in addition its cost must render it practicable for general use. With the setting up of meteorological stations, which can report on the movement of the swarms, and the development of destructive measures, much will bo done to overcome the menace.