71 



Gove, Doniphan, Graham, Greenwood, Harper, Hodgeman, Kiowa, 

 Neosho, Ness, Pratt, Sumner, Stafford, Trego, and Wallace, which are 

 more or less unorganized and uninhabited, so that no records were ob- 

 tained, though they were overrun lilce the rest according to Mr. A. Gray, 

 secretary of the Board of Agriculture. The suffering was great, thirty 

 counties reporting 1,842 families, aggregating 9,154 persons, reduced 

 to destitution, and immigration to the State was checked, and relief 

 societies throughout the country were formed to aid them. 



About the 15th-25th of July, the locusts appeared in Northern and 

 Northwestern Kansas, and continued to be destructive till at least the 

 end of August, and laid their eggs in the autumn. During this year the 

 greatest damage was from northwest to southeast, being lightest along 

 the eastern half of the State, which the winged insects reached too late 

 to do very serious injury ; but the greatest bulk of the eggs were laid 

 as the locusts approached the eastern limits of the State. — (Eiley's Eighth 

 Report.) 



1875. — In this year the damage done was by the yonng locusts, which 

 hatched in enormous numbers in the eastern part of the State, so that, 

 as Mr. Riley states, "in 1875 the tables were turned; the eastern 

 portion of the State suffered, and the western counties were little 

 troubled." He also states that "the ravages of the young locusts were 

 confined to a district of about 150 miles in length and 50 miles in 

 breadth, at the widest, along the eastern border. The counties of Don- 

 iphan, Brown, Atchison, Jefferson, Leavenworth, Douglass, Labette, 

 Johnson, Miami, Franklin, Linn, Bates, and Bourbon, suffered more or 

 less severely." The locusts hatched ont mostly in April and early May, 

 and became fledged May 28 to June 15, and then all flew in a general 

 northwest direction. (Riley's eighth report.) The writer passed over 

 the ravaged region along the Kansas Pacific Railroad just after the 

 locusts had taken flight and witnessed the bare fields, desolated towns 

 and general ruin they left behind along this part of the country. They 

 flew out of the State, and there were no invasions from the north or 

 west that year, and no damage done after the middle of July. Still, 

 owing to the fear of disaster, there was said to be a heavy emigration 

 of farmers from the State. 



1876. — There were fresh invasions from the north and northwest from 

 late in July until early in September. "Early in September the swarms 

 thickened, and the wind blowing almost a gale from the west and north- 

 west for two or three days subsequently, the insects during that time 

 swept down in darkening clouds over the greater portion of the State 

 from the 98th meridian to beyond the 96th. (Riley's ninth report.) 

 Prof. F. H. Snow, October 4, 1876, made the following statement : 



I came through Kaosas from Colorado (Denver) on the 5th and Gth September. Ca- 

 lojJtenus spretus at that time extended about 100 miles east of the mountains, last of which 

 point no trace of it was to be seen during the daylight on the 5th. Next morning we 

 struck locusts in small numbers at Brookville (Saline County), 180 miles west of Kan- 

 sas City ; in full force at Salina, 12 miles farther east ; and found the east front of this 



