A PEST TURNED TO USE.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 June 1924, Page 3

A PEST TURNED TO USE.

The locust has for ages been regarded as the symbol of destructiveness. \Ye all know of the havoc which is from time to time wrought by these hordes of insects as they pass over fertile areas of cultivated ground. Again and again have farmers seen tlie fruits of their labours eaten up by these armies as they have moved over the face of the country. However, it seems that at last a way has been lotind of turning what was universally regarded as an evil into a source of profit. For some time past it lias been recognised that the bodies of locusts if pounded into a paste could Tic used for poultry food, and now a company, known as tho South African Locust Products Company. has been formed to exploit tho pest and put il to good uses. In Johannesburg a factory has been started, in which the insects are prepared in various ways, and made up into noth cattle and poultry fond. Even tho needs of Tinman beings are being catered for. for a locust meal biscuit Is now being manufactured, resembling a ginger-nut in coiour, shape, and size. It is both nourishing and appetising, and is finding a ready sale both among whites and blacks, liseides being used for the above-mentioned purpose, tho insects are also being made into fertilisers.

Few people who do not live in a lo-ciist-iiifesied country have any idea of the vast size of some of the swarms of roe.se insects. An instance is quoted of one which passed over the Red Sea, and was over two thousand square miles in extent. Its weight was estimated as nearly .13,03(1 million tons, lienee it will lie seen ’that there is little likelihood of the sources of supply being exhausted for some time to Kinie.

It seems a strange turn of affairs that an insect which since the earliest ages has proved an agent of destruction should have been turned into a means of providing both man and beast with food, and of fertilising the soil whose fruits it has so often destroyed.