WAR ON THE LOCUST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 19 April 1934, Page 9

WAR ON THE LOCUST

HOPE OF STOPPING THE PLAGUES There is good hope that one of the worid s plagues is about to be written off says the “Morning Post.” Since tile Kings of Israel and before, the locust lias preyed on mail--not directly, but on his means of life. spreading famine through the fields and adding to famine the pestilence that rises from drifts of rotting grasshopper corpses. Insects are successful runners in life’s race, because humanity has fought their-, blindly, without study, c-ften slaughtering allies with enemies ; and the locust has persisted as a scourge over wide tracts of the world because oidv ferocity, not thought, was brought to the contest. Tn recent years flame-throwers and aeroplanes raining down poison have been sent against the swarms; and these expedients were praised as scientific, when, in truth, they were casual and inefficient The one chance was to master the ecology of the locust, to track him to the inner province and breeding stronghfold. from which at intervals innumerable hordes issue under a compulsion (like the crossbill, sand grouse, and perhaps the lemmings) to extend their range And at last patience and system appear to have found the concentration points from which the redwings. the most destructive of Africa's locusts, launch periodic invasions. An officer of the Imperial Institute of Entomology—who deserves fame if bis evnlorafions prove rigid—bar. traced the redwing to two areas in Northern Rhodesia and Southern Tanganyika, and by surveillance and pvomnt attack vdmn the swarms began to muster, it is believed the plagues <an he stopped. Other.observers are intent on the source of the tropical migratory and the desert lo"lists. Since these insects in the infested territories dispose of sugar plantations. tobacco potatoes, pasture, tvees, shrubs and all sorts of crops (a swarm has been seen to clear 90 acres of maize in 20 minutes) the saving to (lie- world if the lorust is brought under control will be inestimable.