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Show OLD AND NEW IN FIGHT ON LOCUSTS And, Strangely, Both Methods Proved Effective. The ancient and the modern continue con-tinue to flourish side by side in East Africa, but perhaps no more striking example of that platitudinous observation obser-vation was ever given than two incidents in-cidents in Kenya recently. A few clays ago the manager of a large sugar estate near Nairobi rushed into town late in the afternoon after-noon and iuformed the directors that a vast swarm of locusts had settled in the sugar cane. Thousands of pounds were at stake. Two directors made a quick, desperate des-perate decision. Realizing the only hope was to disturb the .warm they hired a three-engined airplane and hurried in it to the estate. The machine passed low over the cane, but there was not a single sign of locusts. Turning they flew a few feet from the ground with all three engines roaring. Suddenly the locusts rose in a dense cloud. The machine shot into the sky and maneuvered over the swarm, which slowly moved to a swamp a few miles away and the cane was saved. But listen ! A farmer in the lloeys Bridge district, Kenya, who by desperate des-perate efforts had managed to save his maize (luring the past weeks, while all the crops around him had been cleaned up, was in despair when he saw a large swarm ap-pronching. ap-pronching. Having done everything he could he finally remembered that one of his nativ' employees was suspected of being a witch-doctor. He invoked this man's help. The wizard, an elderly native clad In skins, and weaving the usual charms associated with the craft, pulled a maize stalk from the center of the healthiest part of the crop nnd slowly slow-ly walked round nnd through the maize, using the stalk as a wand and muttering. The swarm descended and the farmer cursed the witchdoctor, but the latter said "Wait and see." The fact is that the swarm destroyed de-stroyed a small patch of inferior maize but left the large area of healthy crop untouched. The government, of course, does not adopt either method. Its experts ex-perts put poisoned bran bait on the ground, knowing that the greedy millions of young insects will feed on it and die. Montreal Family Herald. |