﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 67 



band, and there was enough to make you discouraged. I told you that the people of 

 the State were, as a whole, blessed with a plenty, and prosperous, and that they would 

 not see you suffer The noble generosity of our more fortunate citizens to the east, 

 and especially of the people of St. Louis, in relieving your more pressing wants at the 

 time, liave since justilied my good opinion ot our people. At the .same time I gave 

 you a full account of the habits and ways of the locust plague, and endeavored to im- 

 bue you with confidence Eind hope by showing that your then distress was temporary, 

 that the plague would leave you at a certain time, and that you would yet be blessed 

 with abiuidant harvests. I told you that I was imperatively called away to Europe, and 

 should be absent from the country during most of the summer, but that, though I left 

 you in distress, I expected to come back and find you growing the largest crops of 

 most kinds. Surrounded with such gloomy prospects, it was dithcult for you to take 

 such a bright view of the future, and while many of you were encouraged and had full 

 faith in my predictions, some of you no doubt went away as doubters. Nor could I 

 wonder at the doubters, because, in spite of the fact that an account of the insect was 

 given in my last ofticial report, and that I had given substantial reasons why the pest 

 would not extend farther east, and would not remain with yon. some of our influential 

 journals were not only filled with ridiculous ideas as to the insect's natural history, 

 written by correspondents unfamiliar with the first principles of entomology, but they 

 persisted in spreading the idea that the western counties were to permanently suffer 

 from the scourge, and that it was going to overrun the State and other States to the 

 east — thus unnecessarily increasing the panic, injuring- the credit of these counties, and 

 causing many to leave who would otherwise have stayed. 



I come back among you to tind all my predictions verified, and I joy with you in 

 the bounteous corn crop which 1 see on all hands, the rich vegetable harvest, and the 

 excellent condition of jour pastures and stock. From the first I have placed myself 

 on record, and to do so, it requiredthat faith and confidence born of full consciousness 

 of the fact that my opinions were based on scientific data. It is no slight matter for a 

 public ofiicer to thus risk his reputation, and were you now suffering as you did last 

 Spring, or had my predictions not been so fully verified, your State Entomologist 

 would no doubt be condemned in words by no means measured. 



Clay Couniy. — Here agaiu the insects were very bad and 

 trains on the Cameron Branch of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Rail- 

 road were often reported as stopped by them. The injury was, how- 

 ever, not general. Many parts of the county were bared, but in the 

 larger portion the wheat and corn were not seriously affected, and by 

 the end of June the insects were flying north in multitudes. Corn was 

 being everywhere replanted and the ground extensively prepared for 

 Hungarian and millet. The following correspondence of the St. 

 Joseph Weekly Herald shows the condition of things about the end 

 of May : 



Liberty, May 28, 1875.— The grasshoppers in Clay county are doing great damage 

 to the garden antl present growing crops. In Liberty, the citizens fought bravelv in 

 hopes of keeping them out of their gardens. This week they surrendered. Mr. IIop- 

 per has the field. In the county they have ruined several crops, but some still not 

 damaged. Everything green seems to be their preferred dish. 



The feed for work stock is entirely exhausted, and the last hope the farmers had 

 to put in their second crop was for their stock to subsist on grass, which last hope is 

 disappearing fast. Several are driving their stock north to graze. Eeport says our 

 neighbors are objecting, saying they must have what grass is left for themselves. 



The hoppers are also doing great damage to the fruit in many places. But our 

 farmers have the Jackson kind of nerve and are determmed to pick their flint and try it 

 again. 



Kearney, May 28, 1875.— The prospect at present is rather gloomy. The gardens 

 are nearly all destroyed. Oats, clover, and in fact all small grain have suffered consid- 

 erably from the ravages of the ffrasshopiier, and from a number of farmers we hear 

 that their corn is going too. The recent heavy rains have livened up everything won- 

 derfully, and there is still a prospect for an abundant corn crop, if the pests do not in 

 jure it any more than they have done. The citizens of this (Kearney) township wil 

 hold a mass meeting next Tuesday, the 1st, to consider the best means of meeting the 

 coming emergency and to mutually aid and assist each other. 



