CHRONOLOGY: MISSOURI, 1675, 1876. 67 



that district, suffered less. In some of these, as the extreme north- 

 west counties, the reason may be found in the fact that the winged in- 

 sects of 1874 did not stay long enough to lay excessive numbers of 

 eggs ; while in those along the eastern border the reason is to be found 

 in the fact that the winged swarms when they reached this limit were 

 weakened and decimated ; they were tke straggling remains of a vast 

 army." 



1876. — The counties ravaged by the young insects in 1875, had 

 splendid crops in 1S7G. Fresh armies of locusts in the early autumn 

 from the north and northwest, swept over the western border of the 

 State. It should be noted that a great drought prevailed in the North- 

 west, which favored their multiplication as in other locust years, the 

 drought and heat being the exciting cause of the undue increase of lo- 

 custs and other insect pests. 



"The middle western counties which suffered most in 1875 (i. e., the 

 portion of the State in which the winged insects reached the farthest 

 east in 1874, and laid most eggs) were not overrun in 1876, and will not 

 suffer in 1877. Such are the counties of Platte, Clay, Cass, Lafayette, 

 Johnson, Henry, Pettis, Bates, and Benton. In these counties the farm- 

 ers have little or nothing to fear, except as they may receive a few strag- 

 gling and comparatively harmless bevies of the winged locusts next 

 June and July, from the neighboring country. The counties that were 

 overrun and will suffer are, first, Atchison and Holt, and the western 

 half of Nodaway, and Andrew in the extreme northwest corner; sec- 

 ond, McDonald, Barry, Jasper, Lawrence, Barton, Dade, Newton, Cedar, 

 Yernon, more particularly in the southwest half; Polk, in the northwest 

 third; Hickory in the southwest third; Saint Clair in scattering places, 

 and Christian and Greene in the extreme border. 



"The locusts came into all these counties last Fall, very generally ate 

 off the Fall wheat, and filled the ground with their eggs, in most parts 

 quite thickly. As elsewhere they continued laying until overtaken by 

 frost. 



"Bates, according to one correspondent, also received a few of the in- 

 sects in the western half; while a few stragglers are also reported in 

 Harrison, and even in Gentry, Henry, and Cass ; but it is evident that 

 in these cases they were not in sufficient numbers to do harm or to cause 

 any forebodings in the spring. They came into the northwest corner 

 from the north and northwest, early in September,^ and were to some 

 extent prevented from reaching beyond the points indicated, by south 

 winds. 



"They entered the southwest counties from the southwest nearly a 

 month later, invading Newton and McDonald by September 23, and 

 reaching the middle of Barry by the 1st of October, and Cedar by the 

 middle of the month. It is quite clear that the eastern limit of the 

 swarms which came from the north and northwest was receding west- 



2 According to Signal Service reports, some were seen in Eodaway County much earlier. 



