﻿68 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



Clinton County. — Accounts gathered from this county are some- 

 what meagre. The St. Joseph WeeMy Herald^ May 21, contains the 

 following item from Cameron : 



There are still no indications of the grasshopper plague in this vicinity, though 

 they have done some damage in and about Perrin, some eight miles southwest of here, 

 on the line of the railroad. So far none have been discovered north, east or south of 

 us, only west and southwest. At Plattsburg, twenty miles southwest, they are to be 

 found in countless millions, and have done great injury to wheat and corn. The farm- 

 ers in the devastated sections are replanting corn, and the prevailing sentiment seems 

 to be more hopeful than at last report. 



At a later date, June 14, Capt. M. S. Payne writes : 



As regards the ravages of the locusts, they are fearful, although the air is filled 

 with vast swarms of them like so many bees that had escaped from a hive on their way 

 to other lands, yet enough remains to destroy all vegetation as fast as it comes on, and 

 all prospects for a crop, and sustenance for the coming Winter, unless they leave in the 

 next ten days. The two previous years of drouth in northwest Missouri, together with 

 the enormous financial pressure and heavy taxation have left the people without re- 

 source against the fearful invasions of these devouring insects. 



They came out of a hard, cold Winter, with stock poor and weak. Many good 

 industrious citizens reached the very bottom of their corn cribs long before Spring 

 opened, and the weather was so cold and dry, and vegetation was so exceedingly back- 

 ward that the locusts got the advantage and have kept it. 



All the meadows, both clover and timothy, are absolutely destroyed, and nothing 

 but frequent and heavy rains will save, the blue grass. Our meadow of forty acres is 

 as bare and as desolate as if it had been swept by a tire ; both pastures are (with the 

 exception of the green trees) as bleak as Winter. There is no grass left on the place 

 but the little slope of blue grass that runs back of the barn, and that is kept very short. 

 Our corn is still standing, although much injured, and we do not know how soon it 

 will be taken, the oats next to it were black with them yesterday. 



* * * -x -:;- -::- 



The devastation is much heavier and more universal on the west and south sides of 

 the county. The haz-^l and undergrowth are as leatless as in Winter — all the small 

 fruits of every description are destroyed. Those who were depending on their gardens 

 for support are left destitute, and in the northern and eastern portions of the county, 

 where there is any prairie unenclosed, the grass is not much injured, but there are such 

 vast quantities of stock on it that it affords a meagre sustenance. 



Those who expected to i^low, off the grass, are left without sustenance for their 

 teams while making a crop, even if the hoppers leave in time for them to replant, and 

 they can succeed in procuring the necessary seeds. Many farmers will have to plow 

 with very poor horses through the hottest and most exhausting weather without feed. 



* * * -A- % * 



Our people are brave and persevering and the majority of them will do all that 

 human labor and human skill can accomplish, if they can get the right kind of seeds. 

 Not corn alone is needed, but potatoes, navy beans, Michigan peas, buckwheat, millet, 

 Hungarian, turnip seed, and all kinds of late garden seeds. Tomato, sweet potato and 

 cabbage plants could be shipped in, and if we have a late Fall they can be raised for 

 Winter use. 



Dade County. — The Dade County Advocate of June 3, says : 

 "Farmers report no grasshoppers to amount to anything, and in what 

 few places they have made their appearance they have done no dam- 

 age as yet. Chinch bugs appear to be leaving most neighborhoods, 

 and not much more damage is anticipated from them. Oats are look- 

 ing well in most parts of the county." 



Mr. R. A. Workman, of Greenfield, writes me : " Those that 

 hatched out in the Spring of '75 were so few and so scattered that 

 they did no harm, and, in fact, were scarcely noticed, and disappeared 

 so quietly that no one knows how or where." 



