STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 



while thousands of tons of hay are cut annually, and either fed 

 to stock animals and beeves during the winter or baled and hauled 

 out to the Nevada towns of Reno, Carson, and Virginia, or west- 

 ward to the populous mining centers of 8ierra City and Eureka. 

 Besides, considerable grain of the hardiest kind matures some sea- 

 sons, and in the elevated nooks along the border, where the warm 

 strata of air touch the edge of the basin, hardy vegetables succeed 

 every year. The low center of the valley, like that of all valleys 

 of size contiguous to snow-bearing mountains, is chilled nightly by 

 the cold air settling' down from the snowy peaks and forming a sub- 

 stratum of cold, sedge-fostering atmosphere, every month in the year 

 yielding frost. The population of the valley is about 2,000 souls; 500 

 of them in four small villages, Sierraville, Randolph. Loyalton, and 

 Beckworth, the rest on the ranches. Ere the arrival of the locust 

 scourge no more thriving people were noted in thelimitsof the State. 

 For a time swamp land questions and disputed titles retarded settle- 

 ment, but of late, these drawbacks being removed, the valley was rap- 

 idly hlled. Fine dwellings and capacious barns and stables rose on 

 every side, while with every opening spring bright lines of superior 

 post and board fences stretched away from the farms along the streams 

 and inclosed portions of the outlying commons. There is an excel- 

 lence of material used, a completeness of detail and a stability of pur- 

 pose evinced at once remarked by visitors, hundreds of whom 

 annually seek the cool groves and streams of this retreat for health and 

 recreation. But suddenly a terrible blight has fallen upon the val- 

 ley. Three successive springs have witnessed her grain fields and 

 gardens teeming with fruits, her meadows waving rich, luxuriant, 

 and full of promise. Three successive summers have seen them 

 nearly all swept away before a myriad of tiny, insatiable scythes. 



STATISTICS OF DAMAGES. 



The scourge grew to such importance during the second year, and 

 threatened such greater injury, that the writer deemed it expedient to 

 examine the subject as thoroughly as the limited information and 

 facilities afforded. He visited every part of the valley that was 

 afflicted, observed for himself the habits of the insects, and took notes 

 from the lips of hundreds of the sufferers. Briefly, the aggregate of 

 statistics elicited for 1878 were as follows: 



Adam's Neck and vicinity, the region first and most severely rav- 

 aged, embracing 22 large dairy farms, aggregating 14,000 acres, suf- 

 fered a loss of $18,000. 



Beckworth and vicinity, with 18 farms, of 9,000 acres, lost $15,000. 



Loyalton and vicinity, with 14 farms, of 9,000 acres, lost $20,000. 



Sierraville and vicinity, with 10 farms, of 6,000 acres, lost $10,000. 



West side of valley, with 15 farms, of 5,000 acres, lost $6,300. 



Interior of the valley, with 12 farms, of 4,000 acres, lost $6,000. 



Total of farms, 91; of acres, 47,000; damages, $75,300. 



For the last season — 1879 — the damage, though not falling in the 

 same places, yet is distributed all over the valley, and is estimated at 

 the larger sum of $150,000. To the loss for these two years, if the loss 

 incurred the first year (1877), $47,000, be added, we have a grand total 

 of $272,300. 



