492 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



tiou, they might be waiting in Minnesota for the coming storm, while it 

 descended on the fields of Kansas; or, if scattered, their effectiveness 

 would be destroyed. But suppose that by properly arranged telegraph 

 lines notice should be given from the western side of the plains that a 

 horde was moving, and that, from the direction of the wind, &c., it 

 might be expected along a certain line, and that the Army should be 

 waiting at the proper point, how much is it possible a corn-field of 160 

 acres would be worth after a company of unwilling soldiers had fought 

 grasshoppers over it for two days? Writers and others in attempting 

 to show or illustrate what may be done in this country by what is done 

 in other countries too often forget the vast difference in the rights of 

 individuals in the two. They forget that the soldier here is a man and 

 a citizen, and not a mere machine, and while always willing voluntarily 

 to assist in time of distress and calamity, without debating whether 

 there is any obligation to do so, when this is made a requirement, it is 

 a very different thing with him. The result would therefore, beyond 

 all doubt, prove wholly unsatisfactory. 



The want of the time and place of the arrival of these hordes are very 

 material difficulties to commence with. But let us suppose all the farm- 

 ers of our border States were thoroughly armed and equipped with all 

 the machinery, nostrums, and patent appliances American ingenuity 

 and entomological science could devise. What could they do in the 

 way of contending with one of those immense swarms which sweep down 

 upon them in such countless myriads'? 



As a large portion of the readers of this have never witnessed the 

 movements of one of these swarms, and in order to illustrate in as forci- 

 ble a manner as possible the difficulties under which our border farmers 

 labor at such times, I ask them to take their stand with me, in imagi- 

 nation, on one of those beautiful grassy hillocks everywhere met with in 

 Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota, and Southwestern Minnesota. First, look 

 over the spreading valleys outlined with graceful curves, and sweeping 

 downwards with scarcely perceptible slope towards the south, while 

 beyond in every direction the rolling prairies stretch out as far as the 

 eye can reach, while somewhat regularly over their surfaces (consequent 

 upon the alternate section land-grants) like little islands in the sea are 

 seen the farms. Compare the amount of occupied and actually culti- 

 vated land with the broad surrounding expanse of unoccupied land. 

 Let the reader now extend his imagination a little farther. It is a beau- 

 tiful morning, about the first of August ; not even a fleecy cloud specks 

 the sky, although a refreshing breeze is sweeping down from the north- 

 west ; the fields of corn in sight reflect the silvery beams from seas of 

 waving leaves, while their tasseled heads gently bow before the breeze. 

 All at once, about ten o'clock, a dark shadow is seen moving rapidly 

 over the plains from the northwest ; the rays of the sun are suddenly 

 cut off, and the entire scene appears as though beneath some vast can- 

 opy which has been overspread. But in a moment the mystery is ex- 



