The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro.

Munro, Aeneas.

Date:: [1899]

Credit: The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

43/388 page 19

$to many of the habits of the insect we shall come to do. We are gradually getting more and more light thrown upon them, and our stock of knowledge is becoming fuller and more accurate every decade. So that by recording what we know now as well as what we do not know, we shall serve some useful purpose in two or three more decades later on. While, therefore, there is much regarding the locusts that avowedly we do not know, let us now turn our attention to some of those things which we do know regarding this wonderful insect. 55. Ihe presence of locusts in force constitutes a plague.— The first great fact or practical truth that we should realise is that a visitation of these insects is a plague, and the agriculturist’s worst enemy. It is not easy for anyone who has never had any experience of locusts to form a true idea of the dreadfulness of the locust visit- ation. It is worse than native wars or any disturbance of that sort — worse also than a fall in the price of the commodities or produce of the country, such as mohair or feathers, or inferiority in farm produce. The thought of a possible visitation strikes the cultivator of the soil with alarm and terror. It has a heart-chilling effect, and this more especially after other evils are possibly passing away, such as droughts and disease amongst stock. Locusts come in millions and eat up every- thing. It was in ancient times the eighth on the list of the ten terrible plagues in Egypt, which increased in severity until it culminated in the slaying of the firstborn. As a plague or pest it not only affects the husbandman primarily and chiefly, but also to a certain extent the entire community. No man is independent; one depends on another. There is a marked solidarity in the interests prevailing in a community, and what is true of a man or community is true of peoples or nations. 56. Popular delusions on the subject.—Some ignorant, foolish people assert that the locusts are the “ farmers’ friends,” sent of God to chase or clear away the “ stickgrass,” a kind of grass which, when it gets into the wool, injures and depreciates its value. But such ideas are very narrow and selfish and unworthy, and reduce the subject to absurdity. The whole of the wool put together, for example, in South Africa, would not annually amount to much over ^2,000,000. Suppose it were put at the high price of 5d. per lb., and that the depre- ciation would lower it to 4d., we should even have a comparatively small loss. It would, as estimated roughly, stand as under:—Reducing all the classes of wool in the colony (i.e. fleece-washed, scoured, and greased) to grease-wool, according to the statistics from the Official Handbook, by Mr. John Noble, C.M.G., 1896, p. 317, it would be for 1892, 28,441,212 lbs., which, with even a high average price of 5|d., would yield ,£2,255,945 ; and, reckoning the loss at one-fifth, or id. per lb. {i.e. 20 per cent.), the yield would be ;£ 1,845,773. The differ- ence would be £41 0,172. From a certain standpoint this loss in itself is$

The locust plague and its suppression / by Æneas Munro.

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