orchards and promising fields. Kine 

 and stock of every sort are sleek with 

 plenty, and all the earth seems glad. 

 The day grows. Suddenly the sun's 

 face is darkened, and clouds obscure the 

 sky. The joy of the morn gives way 

 to ominous fear. The day closes, and 

 ravenous locust-swarms have fallen 

 upon the land. The morrow comes, 

 and oh! what a change it brings! The 

 fertile land of promise and plenty has 

 become a desolate waste, and old Sol, 

 even at his brightest, shines sadly 

 through an atmosphere alive with 

 myriads of glittering insects. Falling 

 upon a cornfield, the insects convert in 

 a few hours the green and promising 

 acres into a desolate stretch of bare, 

 spindling stalks and stubs. Covering- 

 each hill by hundreds; scrambling from 

 row to row like a lot of young famished 

 pigs let out to their trough; insignifi- 

 cant individually, but mighty collective- 

 ly, they sweep clean a field quicker than 

 would a whole herd of hungry steers. 

 Imagine hundreds of square miles cov- 

 ered with such a ravenous horde, and 

 one can get some realization of the pic- 

 ture presented in many parts of the 

 country west of the Mississippi during 

 years of locust invasion. Their flight 

 may be likened to an immense snow- 

 storm, extending from the ground to a 

 height at which our visual organs per- 

 ceive them only as minute, darting scin- 

 tillations, leaving the imagination to 

 picture the indefinite distances beyond. 

 It is a vast cloud of animated specs, glit- 

 tering against the sun. On the horizon 

 they often appear as a dust tornado, rid- 

 ing upon the wind like an ominous hail 

 storm, eddying and whirling about like 

 the wild, dead leaves in an autumn 

 storm, and finally sweeping up to and 

 past you with a power that is irresistible. 

 They move mainly with the wind, and 

 when there is no wind they whirl about 

 in the air like swarming bees. If a pass- 

 ing swarm suddenly meets a change in 

 the atmosphere, such as the approach of 

 a thunderstorm or a gale of wind, they 

 come down precipitately, seeming to 

 fold their wings and fall by the force of 

 gravity. At other times, in alighting, 

 they circle in myriads about you, beat- 

 ing against everything animate or in- 

 animate ; driving into open doors and 



132 



windows; heaping about your feet and 

 around your buildings; their jaws con- 

 stantly at work biting and testing all 

 things in seeking what they can devour. 

 In the midst of the incessant buzz and 

 noise which such a flight produces, in 

 the face of the unavoidable destruction 

 everywhere going on, one is bewildered 

 and awed at the collective power of the 

 ravaging host, which calls to mind so 

 forcibly the plagues of Egypt. The 

 noise their m.yriad jaws make when en- 

 gaged in their work of destruction, can 

 be realized by anyone who has fought 

 a prairie fire, or heard the flames pass- 

 ing along before a brisk wind, the low 

 crackling and rasping — the general 

 effect of the two sounds is very much 

 the same." 



Not only is the adult, winged locust 

 destructive to crops, but the young insect, 

 which is wingless, is in many respects 

 even more destructive, for it does its 

 work more slowly, hence more thor- 

 oughly. After hatching, these little 

 insects are so numerous as to cover 

 everything as with a carpet, and nothing 

 escapes, not even a blade of grass. These 

 locusts owe their preservation to their 

 migratory habits, for without the power 

 and will to move from place to place 

 they would soon denude a locality of 

 all vegetation and consequently die for 

 lack of food. This habit, while bene- 

 ficial to the insect is very hurtful to the 

 agriculturist, who seeks for means to 

 destroy these hosts of pests. 



Several means have been employed 

 to effect this remedy, the best one being 

 to plow the land thoroughly where eggs 

 have been laid. This buries the eggs 

 so deeply in the soil that the larvae are 

 unable to reach the surface after hatch- 

 ing. To be effectual the plowing must 

 be six or eight inches in depth. An- 

 other method is to burn over the in- 

 fected field, thus killing the larvae. 

 Poisoning has also been resorted to, but 

 is dangerous. In some localities ma- 

 chines called "hopper-dozers" are used. 

 These are shallow pans about eight feet 

 long, two feet broad and one and one- 

 half inches deep. These have runners 

 fastened to the bottom and are drawn by 

 a horse. A wooden frame is attached to 

 the rear of the pan and over this is 

 stretched a piece of canvas, making a 



