The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-10-18
FIGHT ON LOCUST
Philippines to Battle Pest Feed
ing on Crops.
War Gases of No Value-WiIl
Use Disease Germs.

Manila. Oct. 1S.-Four hundred
municipal districts of various prov
inces of the Philippines were infested
this year with huge swarms of locusts,
which caused considerable damage to
crops and threaten by another crop
season to cut. down production to the
value of many millions of pesos. War
gases have been tried in vain on the
places where they deposit their eggs,
and sprays of crude petroleum or soap
solution and arsenic poison mixed in
molasses spread on sugar cane leaves
or stalks have had little more than
temporary effect.
Driven Into Pits.
In the hopper stage. before the
locusts get wings, they are easily
driven, like sheep. The law requires
every man to go out on these drives
at the call of the municipal authori-
ties. Pits are dug and wings OF gall
vanized iron sheets run out V-shaped
from them. Men with sticks then sur
round the field where the locusts are
feeding and drive them into the pits
and bury them. Always a sufficient
number escape to grow to maturity
and lay more eggs than ever. so that
even this method of fighting them
avails little.
Use Natural Enemies
The entomologist at the Bureau of
Science now proposes to fight them
with natural enemies, either other in
sects that may be found to feed upon
them or bacteria that will spread dis
ease among them. Circulars are be-
ing sent out to planters and farmers
asking them to report at once II
pathological symptoms develop in To-
Gusts in their vicinity. If diseased To-
Gusts can be found 1t is proposed to
spread the ailment as rapidly as pos
sible in order to kill them all off.
Prolific Species.
When the females are heavy with
eggs their flight is sluggish, and birds
and other insects feed upon them. But
if the females escape their enemies
they alight on the ground and deposit
eggs in thick and numerous clusters,
and as many as a billion young may
hatch from a single acre of ground
where locusts have oviposited. The
progeny of a single female is capa-
BILE, within three generations, of de-
vouring $50 tons of green matter
sugar cane, rice, bamboo foliage,
whatever comes in their path. The
hoppers eat vorac.ously over a Pc
Rod of fifty-four days, when they de-
velop wings and take flight, some
times migrating twenty-five miles in
a single day. Their flight is largely
controlled by the prevailing winds;
they do not make Roadway against
wind. and crops adjacent to their
preceding places, In the pampaS at the
edge of forests, may escape them on
this account altogether, while other
fifty miles away will be destroyed.
Eat Each Other.
Locusts are cannibalistic, in which
fact lies the advantage of using ar
senic to poison their forage. Those
dying of the poison will be eaten by
their companions, and these will die
and be eaten by others, and SO on
three or four times until the effects
of the poison are too attenuated to
kill
Gases are of little avail against 10
Gusts, because their breathing organs
are more like boiler tubes than ordi-
nary lungs, and gases, unless very
concentrated. have no effect upon
them. 1t was proposed to have the
cargo of war gases that the Washing
ton conference stopped at Honolulu
sent on to the Philippines to use
against the locusts until experiments
at the Bureau of Science convinced
the authorities that practical use of
the gases in this work was not posi-
HE All hope centers in natural erGe-
mics