Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-10-30
LOCUST PLAGUE
IN ARGENTINE
WIDE AREAS OF COUNTRY IN
SOUTH AMERICA RENDERED
DESOLATE.
NO REMEDY FOUND AS YET.
Five Governments Fighting the Pest
Which Seems to Be Getting
Worse Yearly.
NO REMEDY FOUND AS YET.

y cable dispatch received in France
While ago described how in the prov
lnce OF Catamarca, Argentina, many
women had fallen to the ground in CON
WILSON'S of weeping and for a time We're
almost bereft of their senses, repeating
only the words: The locusts. the To-
Gusts 1t was the third successive sea
son III which they had seen the skies
darkened with clouds of locusts that set
tied down upon their fields and plains
destroying the crops and every vesuge of
the vegetation on which their cattle and
sheep subsist.
NO otner part of the world has in re-
cent years suffered from such a plague
OF lOcuStS as the agricultural states OF
sub-tropical and temperate South Amer
lca-Argentina, Bolivia, southern Brazil
Paraguay and Uruguay share the attiic-
zion, says the New York Sun.
In these regions the sWarms have been
steadily increasing for a number of
years. They are supposed to originate n
the southerly part OF the Amazon basin
and III tie Chaco of Bolivia and Of
northern Argentina.
They come from the north in clouds
that sometimes darken the sun and some
Of the sWarms have been estimated to
be sixty miles long and from twelve to
fifteen miles wide. But these billions of
flying insects are only the forerunners OF
the greater mischief to come.
Five Governments Fighting.
They make desolate the area in which
they settle, but often jump wide areas
| in their flight. Before they take to the
wing they lay billions of eggs in the
warm earth which in a few weeks be
come hoppers. 1t is this young, vora-
cious brood, before it can fly, that utterly
strips the land of everything green as
tbnuub haI
All the governments are fighting the
evil. Two years ago the Argentine gov
eminent organized a bureau under the
name of ,Defensa general agricola para
la extinction de langosta, or commission
for the destruction of the locust. Last
year the Argentine Congress placed 81,
100000 at the disposal of this commits
sion.
Subcommittee represent the general
commission in every department exposed
to these invasions and they extend from
the northern limit of agriculture in the
republic to the Neuquen river, almost tC
Patagonia. Everything possible is done
to minimize the damage
A fine of 100 pesos is imposed upon
any settler failing to report to the sub
committee in his district the presence OF
| locust SWarms or hopper eggs on his
land. An organized service embracing
thousands of men is in readiness at any
moment 10 SeHu d lOIce 10 any place
where danger is reported. The most eff
fective war is waged against the young
hOppers.
The official report is that as many as
1000 hopper eggs have been counted in
space less than three and half feet
square. A prodigious number Of the
young insects are destroyed soon after
Matching by means of sprinkling carts
filled with arsenic water or other poison
Gus liquids. Still many Of them escape
and the country they cover is too vast to
be entirely treated with the sprinkling
process. Fortunately the young hoppers
have a habit that facilitates the destruc-
ton of millions more of them.
BY the time they are two weeks old
they have developed an enormous appe-
tite. But they do not set out to eat up
the world in thin array Or scattered de-
tachments.
How Locusts Are Trapped.
They collect here and there in com
pact masses to move forward on the
food. and when an army Of hOppers adj
vances from one space to another there
is nothing left to eat on the ground they
have deserted. They cannot fly, they
move forward only from 400 TO 600 feet
2 day Now is the time to trap them.
In front of them trench is dug about
six feet deep and wide and 100 or 200
feet long. From each end of the trench
nieces of sheet tin about seventy-hve
feet long and foot and a. half high are
stuck into the ground, forming two lines
of fence spreading fanlike from the ends
of the trench These fences are extend
cd fill their outer ends are hundreds OF
feet apart, wide enough to enclose the
TANKS Of the invading army. Then all Is
ready for the drive.
It is hot work, beginning at sunrise,
and all the settlers and the government
men sent to their aid take part III 1t with
weapons that are effective: Ih0uSh they
are only pieces of cloth. with which they
fap the ground and urge the h0ppers
forward. Very often darkness falls ana
the rear guard of the hoppers has not yer
reached the brink over which they tun-
bIe to their fate The hoppers VIII not
stir till sunrise, and then the happins
of the cloth is resumed till this particular
army is engulfed The crops and grass
iust ahead are safe for while,
Rut such work as this spread over
several countries is enormously expensive
and is only palliative OF the terrio n'
evil, not a remedy for it. A remedy lds
rot vet been found. Can the, plague OF
locusts be ouenched if attacked at It's
head sources? Is there any parasite OF
natural enemy Of the insect that can oe
Introduced to quench the plague or NIT
cate it? Such questions as these are are
now being anxiously discussed III oou'h
America.