The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-12-11
DESTROYING q
The Enormous Number Killed In T.

The Enormous Number Killed In I"o
Hours.
The following is published in the
English papers, from a letter recently
received from Ajmere, in Rajpootana,
India:
"The young %locusts, which have for
several weeks threatened us, are no."
taking their marches preliminary to
their wings having grown sufficiently
for flight, and they are doing enormous
damage. It is heartrending, after the
scarcity OF last year, to see the fields
full of fine, tall, healthy crops n day
reduced by the next to q waste OF bare
brown stalks. I was congratulatlng
myself yesterday on the escape of our
garden, but this morning I saw our SER
wants and several other men in an
excited state, shouting and waving
branches, trying to divert the hopping
masses past our boundary, and thus
save the garden. T~wenty-eight men
have been at this work since quite early
this morning."
The same writer continues q few days
later: CT had heard, but had doubted
the truth of the story as to how they
get rid of the army of young locusts in
Bikaneer. You know, I suppose, they
spring from eggs deposited by previous
flights of l~ocusts, and when Matched
hop along in dense masses while yet
unfit for flight, and in their progress
lay waste all vegetation. I had heard
that in Bikaneer they dig trenches to
leeward of where these young broods
appear, and take measures to drive the
locusts into them; and the sides being
perpendicular, the creatures hop in but
cannot hop out, and earth is thrown in
upon them, resolved to make an ex-
pertinent. I suggested to c., who
was lamenting the devastation going on
around, that he should call out a party
of men from his regiment and let us dig
some trenches and drive the locusts into
them, and so prove the truth or other
wise for ourselves. He promptly re-
sponded, so we collected spades and or
ganized fatigue parties, and set to work.
Some time was lost in getting matters
into training, but in about two hours
we succeeded in getting several trenches
dug, varying from twenty-five feet to
sixty feet long, one foot wide and about
two feet deep. ,
"Then we sent 'Sepoys' (native SOL
diers) in q horshoe direction from the
trench about 1000 feet away to wave
hands and drive the locusts on. They
came, and thickened as they approached,
one dense mass, hopping along until
they hoped into the trench. It was q
curious sight to stand ct the end and
look at it ala seething, hopping mass
inside the trench, while q regular short
cataract came pouring down on them
until they were about two inches deep;
then the hopping ceased in the trench.
They had nothing hard to kick against,
but the influx continued till they were
half up the ditch. when we quickly
threw in earth and buried them, and
then off to another trench and repeat
the whole operation. We continued
this for two hours.
"While at one of the trenches I sent
for q fnger-glass and immersed it in
the mass of ~locusts, as n might dip it
into water, then struck it off with q
piece of cardboard, so I had it as full az
It would hold. When I got home I
weighed the glassful, hen emptied it
and weighed the glass, so I got the
weight of the locusts; then l counted
them out (566), then measured very &C.
curately the solid contents of the glass,
by weighing the amount of water it held
and computing from that; thus I had
space, number and weight for data.
"Knowing We had dug and filled 800
feet of trench one foot wide, filled to
one foot deep, I calculated that the re-
suit was: killed and buried seven and q
half millions of ~locusts, weighing ten
and a half tons, in two hours from the
time the trenches were ready; about four
hours altogether"