﻿136 SEVENTH ANNUAL EEPORT 



grees of latitude, and, in the broadest part, eighteen degrees of longi- 

 tude. 



" On several days in June, July and August, of 1855, the grasshop- 

 pers (or la7igostas of the ISpaniards) were seen in such incredible 

 numbers in the valley of Sacramento, in California; in the valley of 

 Colima, in Southwest Mexico; in the valley of the Great Salt Lake; 

 in Western Texas, and in certain valleys of Central America, that they 

 filled the air like flakes of snow on a winter's day, and attacked every- 

 thing green or succulent with a voracity and despatch destructive to 

 the hopes of the agriculturalists." 



They are described as reducing the Mormons of Salt Lake, during 

 that year, to a simpler diet than that of John the Baptist, for the 

 people had to fall back on the locusts without the honey; and they 

 caused a good deal of sufiering in the then Territories of Kansas, Ne- 

 braska and Minnesota. The Summer of 1855, like that of 1874, was 

 exceedingly dry — the driest in fact that had been known for ten years. 



In 1856 they again made their appearance in parts of Utah, Cali- 

 fornia and Texas, but in diminished numbers. In Minnesota, how- 

 ever,* and in West and Northwest Iowa their ravages during this year 

 seem to have been greater. 



In 1857 we hear of them again in various parts of the Northwest f 

 and around the Assiniboiue settlement in Manitoba,;J:and they destroyed 

 the entire crop of a region of country extending from the base of the 

 third plateau to the Gulf of Mexico, 150 miles in length, and about 80 

 in breadth, including the entire valley of the Gaudaloupe, and much 

 of the territory watered by the Colorado and San Antonio rivers. 

 Throughout this whole area of 12,000 square miles every green thing 

 cultivated by man was consumed, and how much further northwest 

 the ravages extended is not known. || They reached as far East as 

 Central Iowa. § 



It is probable that part of the injury reported in 185G and 1857 

 east of the Rocky Mountains was caused by the progeny from the 

 immense swarms that swept over the country in 1855; and it is quite 

 likely that some of them reached Missouri, for Mr. H. B. Palmer, of 

 Hartville, has related to me how, about 1857, these insects passed 

 through a portion of Wright county, from N. to S., stripping everything 

 on their way. 



*Eep. or Dept. of Agr. 1863, p. 36. 



tWalsh's Ills. Ent. Kep. pp. 92-3: Prairie Farmer, April 25, 1868. 



X Canada Farmer Aug. 15, 1874. 



II Rev. E, Fontaine, loc. cit. 



§ Prairie Farmer. April 25, 1868. 



