30 The Condition of the Western Farmer. [308 



bers in 1862; again in '64 and '65, and in '66 and '68 they 

 were seen, but did little harm. In '69 in certain sections, 

 as in Hall county, they destroyed the whole crop. The habit 

 of the insects is to soar high in the air in immense swarms, 

 and from time to time to pounce down on a field, often strip- 

 ping it bare of all vegetation before continuing their flight 

 The grain most commonly devoured was corn. After '69 

 the pests were not seen in central Nebraska till '73, and 

 though in this year many families suffered very severe 

 losses, yet the average crop for the whole state was fair, and 

 prices of grain were not greatly raised. Hall county was 

 fortunate enough to escape them almost entirely at this time. 

 In the last days of July and the first of August, '74, they suc- 

 ceeded in devouring almost all the growing corn, and those 

 settlers on the frontier whose " sod corn m had been their 

 sole crop, and those farther east who had concentrated almost 

 all their labor on that one crop, were sometimes reduced to a 

 condition of absolute want. The years '75 and '76 saw the 

 return of the " hoppers," as the settlers familiarly called them, 

 but in neither year was the destruction so great as before. 



It will be well to discuss in this place the standard of living 

 of the early settler and its relation to his possibility of finan- 

 cial progress. It is true the early settler possessed very little 

 property, but on the other hand his needs were few. A sod 

 house gave him shelter, and after the first year his farm fur- 

 nished him most of the food he required. The standard of 

 living was practically the same for all the settlers, so that with 

 the purchase of a little clothing and a few groceries, one 

 could live comfortably, as the times went, on a very small 

 outlay of cash. True, it was a hard life to live, but as a better 

 was well-nigh impossible, and as there was always bright 

 hope of improvement in the future, the settler was content. 

 Rivalry being so largely lacking, the forces which would tend 

 to raise the standard of living were very weak, and all the in- 



J Sod crops are raised on prairie which has only just been 

 broken. They are usually very light and easily destroyed by a 

 bad season. 



