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120 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



stricken counties the finest crops the people had witnessed for years, 

 were reported, of corn, Hungarian grass, prairie meadow, buckwheat 

 and vegetables of all kinds. Larger areas had been planted to corn 

 than ever before. In September the change which three months had 

 wrought needed to be seen to be appreciated, and never in the history 

 of those counties had root crops done so well, or vegetables of all 

 kinds attained such immense proportions. 



XO EVIL WITHOUT SOME COMPELS <VTING GOOD. 



Not to mention the valuable experience and the quickening in- 

 fluence that are generally gained in temporary adversity, there are 

 other ways in which good will grow out of the locust troubles. The 

 chinch bugs filled the air last Spring throughout the stricken district, 

 and many persons feared that they would destroy the corn crop even 

 if the locusts left. I then argued that there was no danger of such a 

 result, and that there was every reason to expect less injury from this 

 cause than usual, and with a wet Sammer, which might be expected, 

 an almost total annihilation of the pest. With everything eaten by 

 the locusts, the female chinches, instead of being quietly engaged, 

 unseen, inlaying eggs, as they usually are in May, were flying about, 

 seeking plants on the roots of which to consign their eggs. For this 

 reason they were more noticeable. Once fully developed in the 

 ovaries, and the eggs must be laid, and the great bulk of them were 

 necessarily laid where the young hatching from them were destined to 

 perish, as the result proved ; for, injurious as the species had been for 

 the two or three previous years, scarcely a specimen was to be found 

 in the Fall. Indeed, I think we may safely conclude that, as a conse- 

 quence of the locusts and the rain, the farmers of our western coun- 

 ties will not sufi'er from the Chinch Bug for the next two years at least. 

 The same will hold true of many other insect pests, which were starved 

 out last Spring; and while some of our common native locusts were 

 so thick in the Fall, in the eastern portion of the State, as to do seri- 

 ous injury to fall wheat and garden truck, scarcely one could be found 

 in the counties most ravaged last Spring by the spretus. 



The unusual productiveness of the soil in the stricken country 

 was on all hands noted during the year, and was owing, in no small 

 degree, to the rich coating of manure which the locusts left. In the 

 form of excrement and dead locusts, the bulk of that which was lost 

 in Spring was left in the best condition to be carried into the soil and 

 utilized. The introduction of new seed from other States was also 

 beneficial. 



