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THROUGH THE CAUCASUS TO THE VOLGA
182
and that aeroplanes have been used for this purpose
with good results : but it is doubtful whether any
thing can really help.
These swarms of locusts are carried by the wind,
and generally come from uncultivated land, where
the eggs can be laid and hatched out without
disturbance. The only practical method, therefore,
is to attack them there before they grow to maturity,
and destroy their eggs and lavae by burning off the
ground and sprinkling petroleum over it.
North of the mountains in northern Persia,
towards the Caspian south of Azerbaidjan, there is
said to be a lot of uncultivated land of this kind
where the locust swarms are formed. The Persians
themselves are little interested in destroying them,
since the wind seldom carries them southwards
over the high mountain ranges; while they are
often spread northwards over Azerbaidjan and
Daghestan. By agreement with the Persians the
Transcaucasian government of late years has used
destructive methods on the ground in spring in
these Persian districts, and in this way the plague
has been greatly lessened. But the swarms wc saw
here had certainly not come all that way from
Persia; they came from places nearer. Where they
now were the whole crop would be destroyed;
luckily, the area so far was not very great, but the
question was where the wind would carry them.
These locusts are rather large and of a brownish
colour, five or six centimetres long. It is a pity
they cannot be used as food instead of the corn they
destroy ; but so far as I could find out they are not
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