STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. im 



heaps near the fences and buildings; flew low, not above twenty feet; 

 wings transparent; laid eggs in August, the female dying soon after; 

 they reminded him of "hoppers" met with on the Humboldt in 1S54, 

 but are not so destructive; those ate willows and sagebrush. 



W. S. Raine, between Loyalton and Sierraville, lost 75 acres of oats, 

 worth $1,500, with hay and feed worth $200. The oats were just in 

 full stand when attacked about July 20th; locusts ate for two weeks. 

 He made desperate and temporarily successful efforts to defend his 

 crops; took two hundred yards of baling rope, fastened papers to it 

 at intervals and swept them over his grain, driving the locusts before 

 the shaking papers; "drove them out forty times," but was over- 

 powered by numbers and cleaned out; many remained on the 

 ground, laid eggs and died. The locusts were about four days in 

 arriving; came from "the island;" flew low; so thick they darkened 

 the sun; stopped his horses while he was attempting to rake hay; 

 pelted the fences and buildings like hail; devoured cured hay in the 

 bunch with evident relish. 



D. D. Newman, six miles north from Sierraville, lost 75 acres of 

 oats, but a small held of rye was untouched; had experience with 

 locusts before in 1861. For a year or two they had been in tlie north 

 of the valley, just as now, rapidly increasing and traveling north- 

 ward. About the 10th of May they arrived at his place, all young 

 ones on foot, pouring around the point of rocky land like a dark, 

 angry flood. The stream was, candidly speaking, several inches in 

 depth. He, with the help of neighbors, dug a trench 40 feet long 

 and two feet deep across their course. The young locusts fell into it, 

 smothered and died, while others traveled over them when the ditch 

 was full. Th.Qy shoveled out the dead, and before night the ditch 

 was filled a second time, estimated at 50 bushels. Work was stopped, 

 because Newman feared the stench from the carcasses would be worse 

 for his family than the loss of crops. The locusts piled up against 

 his barn like snow drifts, to the height of several feet, estimated at 500 

 bushels. The scourge this time is nothing like so bad, but bad 

 enough. 



B. F. Lemmon, one mile east of Sierraville, describes the invasion 

 of 1859 to 1861 as much more severe than the present one. The 

 insects did not reach his ranch then until August, 1861. A great 

 many of them seemed to keep more distinctly in swarm — were 

 heavily parasitized. Little red lice or ticks, smooth as bladders, upon 

 them in abundance, especially under the wings, hlled with blood. 

 Some of the locusts, when torn open, revealed grubs like fat maggots 

 within. Some laid down and died upon arrival before they had time 

 to eat. Others crowded under buildings and into cellars, wells, cis- 

 terns, and ditches, and caused a noxious stench by their decaying 

 carcasses. Came over the mountains from the north part of the 

 valley, flying about twenty to forty feet high. Ravaged the flelds 

 about three weeks, entirely destroying grain and vegetables. Think 

 the pests extended no further south. The late invasion is wider in its 

 sweep, but less numerous. Did not arrive at his ranch until 1878, 

 and not numerously until 1879, all heavily parasitized. Noticed a 

 kind of cricket attacking and eating them this year. He is a green- 

 ish, long-legged fellow, much spryer than the locust — pounces upon 

 one unawares and instantly whips off its head, then twirls his antennae 

 about like a mousing cat on the lookout for another. Took the pre- 



