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118 THE DIAMOND MINES OF SOUTH AFRICA
sands
to hatch during the months of September and October. Sometimes all
Kenilworth and the adjoining fields are swarming with these insects. In
order to protect some of the gardens from young locusts, sheets of
corrugated iron twenty-six inches wide are placed along, and leaning
against, the fences. The locusts cannot climb up the smooth surface of
the iron. In that way
many
residences are also protected. Sometimes servants are employed
continually from morning till night in driving away the insects.
They destroy all the vegetation over which they pass. The natives are
very fond of eating them. They go out into the veld in large parties,
and drive the voetgangers from all directions upon blankets, and then
empty them into sacks which they carry to their huts. Flying locusts
develop in about six weeks from the dark-brown little insects. The
other variety that scourges the fields is a species of locusts with red
wings, and their damage is the greater from the fact that they stay in
one place until every green plant upon which they alight is destroyed.
Swarms of these locusts occasionally appear, at times darkening the
horizon, and following the wind. For the past seven years these swarms
have been very troublesome. During one season, after consuming all the
leaves, the leaf and fruit buds on the trees were entirely eaten off by
these pests, destroying the fruit not only for that year, but for the
following season. In spite of these drawbacks to fruit raising, the
efforts of the Company have been unflagging.
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