35 



while others of the same variety are not damaged so much ; and upon examination it will be 

 invariably found that those mostly eaten were diseased, or had their vitality in some way 

 impaired. This thing was noticeable when the same kind ijf insects were here six or seven 

 years ago. Of all fruit trees, apple and pear trees suffer the most, while peaches, plums and 

 cherries suffer the least. They eat the leaves iff the apples, and leave most of the apples on, 

 but of the peaches they will eat the fruit and leave the foliage ; but in many instances, when 

 vegetation is not plenty, I understand they clean all as they go, and I have seen instances of 

 this kind. The dainage to vineyards in this county is not so great. They do not seem to 

 relish grapes, and are satisfied by eating off the stems and letting the bunches fall to the 

 ground. There will not be enough corn in this county to feed what stock there is in the 

 county as it should be fed." 



The same report states that " the plague " — as it justly terms it — is reported in two 

 counties in Wisconsin, seven in Minnesota, five in Iowa, four in Missouri, thirty in Kansas 

 and seven in Nebraska. It adds that "the wide-spread destruction which they (the locusts) 

 have caused in the north west has not been adequately described. In many places large 

 masses of people will probably suffer during the coming winter for the necessaries of life, 

 their crops having been swept by this remorseless enemy." 



The next Monthly Report — that for October — records the prevalence of the plague in two 

 more counties in Minnesota, two more in Iowa, four more in Missouri, four mure in Kansas, 

 four more in Nebraska, three in Texas, two in Colorado, and one in California. The fol- 

 lowing letter from Kansas is recorded " to give some idea of its ravages :" — " The farmers in 

 r unity had their land for wheat prepared in good time, and in a better condition than 1 

 iw. On the 6th of September the grasshoppers made their appearance all over the 

 Farmers became alarmed and did not sow any wheat. About the 18th to the it'th 

 iipeared to go away. Farmers commenced sowing and got in about two-thirds of their 

 crop, On the 28th and 29th they came the second time, filling the air, reminding one of a 

 snow-storm in December. Some who had sown early had wheat up nice, but you cannot find 

 a spear in any place. Wheat which was sown before the grasshoppers came the first time has 

 been eaten down, until the grain has finally ceased to grow. I am candidly uf the opinion 

 that every acre which is sown to-day in this county will have to be sown again. There is no 

 other chance for it, and the great trouble will be that so many of our farmers have sown all 

 their seed and are not able to buy again. And what will they do ? Some who have not been 

 two years on their claims are leaving them and going over into Missouri and Arkansas to 

 winter — to find something to live upon." 



We might go on to an almost unlimited extent with similar descriptions of the wide- 

 spread devastation caused by these insects, and the consternation they have produced through- 

 out the west. Every agricultural newspaper and a large number of city papers have pub- 

 lished throughout the past season similar records of ruin and suffering. To assist their 

 brethren in the afflicted regions, large sums of money have been contributed both by State 

 Governments and by individuals ; but it is greatly to be feared that the utmost liberality will 

 hardly save from ruin, though it may relieve temporarily, many farmers who had recently set- 

 tled on those hitherto attractive plains. Not only, it should be remembered, have they suffered 

 from a dire plague of locusts, but they have also been the victims of a long continued drought ; 

 accompanied in some localities by a terrible hot wind, resembling the sirocco that blasts southern 

 Europe with the dry heat of the African desert ; to add also to their series of calamities, the 

 Chinch-bug* destroyed in many places those crops that the Locusts spared. 



To illustrate the reality and intensity of the sufferings that we have alluded to, we shall 

 give one extract only out of a large number that might be quoted. The writer of a letter to 

 the Prairie Farmer, dated Kearney, Nebraska, November 16th, thus describes the condition 

 of things in his neighbourhood : — " Your readers have been pretty fully posted as to the ravages 

 of locusts over this entire region, the devastation extending from Central Minnesota to the 

 southern limit of Kansas, the whole country being almost as utterly destroyed, so far as pro- 

 visions are concerned, as if it had been swept by the scathing flames. I speak more under- 

 standingly of my own neighbourhood, and shall endeavour to state facts that may be firmly 

 relied upon, and which can be verified if necessary, by the testimony of others in my own 



* For a description of the Chiuch-bug, see the reiiort of tho Eiitoiiidlogical Society of On- 

 tario, for 1871. 



