8 
put in a state of thorough cultivation, and planted. Early in June 
rows of cotton adjacent to the ditches draining this basin were damaged 
by grasshoppers, but little attention was paid to the particular species, 
as the area attacked was considered insignificant. Nothing was done 
to suppress this miniature outbreak or to avoid a repetition of it the 
following year, but the situation was no more threatening than that 
witnessed on neighboring plantations a few years previous. 
The vigor of the attack in 1899, spreading perhaps from different 
infesting areas for hundreds of miles, was unexpected, and no effort 
was made to check the young grasshoppers at the time when remedial 
measures are more or less effective. So little attention was paid to 
the grasshopper situation that the early molts had taken place and the 
nymphs had reached a considerable size before a condition almost equal 
to a plague was realized. 
The ravages upon Dahomy began in and around the basin and spread 
in a northwesterly direction until more than 5,000 acres of corn and 
cotton were involved. 
Mr. P. M. Harding, representing the owners of Dahomy, outlined 
in the following letter to the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agri- 
culture, the gravity of the situation: 
VickxssBurG, Miss., July 6, 1899. 
Dear Sir: I sent you by express yesterday from Benoit, Miss., some specimens of 
corn and cotton stalks and other vegetation, together with a box of grasshoppers, for 
your examination, and in the hope that you may render us some immediate assist- 
ance in the matter of destroying the grasshoppers that are devouring our crops of 
cotton, corn, oats, millet, and pease. 
I beg to explain that I represent the Equitable Company of New York, which has 
recently acquired the large plantations formerly owned by the late Mr. James 8. 
Richardson, including what is known as the Dahomy property in Bolivar County, 
Miss., which consists of about 19,000 acres of land, with between 9,000 and 10,000 
acres in cultivation, and which isthe largest cotton plantation in the South. It is on 
this property that the grasshoppers are doing the greatest damage, and unless their 
ravages are terminated by some means ata very early date I am satisfied they will 
entirely eat up the crops. 
The grasshoppers made their appearance on Dahomy early in the spring, feeding 
first on the vegetation along the sloughs, the edge of the timber, and on the ditch 
banks. I was on this property about three weeks ago, and found that while they 
were rapidly increasing in numbers they had done but little damage to the crops, 
eating a little young cotton at the end of the rows along the ditch banks, and here 
and there we saw where they had cut some of the stalks of corn at. the ends of the 
rows, and they were about that time beginning to feed on the oats. My managers 
have been reporting from time to time of their increase, but not until ten days ago 
did they report that they were going away from the ditch banks and completely 
covering the fields. 
I have just returned from this property, and beg to give you my observations con- 
cerning the damage done to the various crops, as follows: 
Cotton.—They have totally destroyed 300 acres. What I mean by totally destroy- 
ing this acreage is that they have eaten all of the foliage off of the stalks, killing 
the stalk completely, and on a large part of this 300 acres there is not a vestige of 
stalk left, the ground being as bare as when it was first broken up for planting. 
