EFFECTS RESULTING FROM SEVERE LOCUST INJURY. 433 



country begins to wear a bright and promising aspect, in strong contrast 

 witli the desolation of a month before. In August the contrast becomes 

 still more gratifying, and frequently there are grown the finest crops of 

 corn, Hungarian grass, prairie meadow, buckwheat, and vegetables of 

 all kinds. In September the change which three months have wrought 

 needs to be seen to be appreciated. Root crops do well, and vegetables 

 of all kinds attain immense proportions, owing to the freedom from 

 weeds and fertility resulting from the dung and bodies of the dead 

 locusts. 



NO EVIL WITHOUT SOME COMPENSATINO GOOD. 



*'Not to mention the valuable experience and the quickeuiog influence 

 that are generally gained in temporary adversity, there are other ways, 

 in which good may grow out of the locust troubles when they are severe.. 

 The chinch bugs filled the air in the spring of 1875 throughout the 

 stricken district, and many persons feared that they would destroy the 

 corn crop even if the locusts left. We then argued that there was no 

 danger of such a result, and that there was every reason to expect less 

 injury from this cause than usual, and with a wet summer, which might 

 be expected, an almost total annihilation of the pest. With everything 

 eaten by the locusts, the female chinches, instead of being quietly en- 

 gaged, unseen, in laying eggs, as they usually are in May, were flying 

 about seeking plants on the roots of which to deposit their eggs. For 

 this reason they were more noticeable. Once fully developed in the 

 ovaries, the eggs must be laid, and the great bulk of them were neces- 

 sarily laid where the young hatching from them were destined to perish, 

 as the result proved ; for, injurious as the species had been for the two or 

 three previous years, scarcely a specimen was to be found in the fall. 

 The same will hold true of many other insect pests, which are starved 

 out in the spring by utter devastation of their food-plants j and such a 

 devastated country is apt to be free from most noxious insects during 

 the subsequent two or three years. 



" The unusual productiveness of the soil in the stricken country was 

 on all hands noted during the year 1875, and was owing, in no small 

 degree, to the rich coating of manure which the locusts left. In the 

 form of excrement and dead locusts, the bulk of that which was lost in 

 spring was left in the best condition to be carried into the soil and util- 

 ized. The introduction of new seed from other States was also benefi- 

 cial. 



"Nature generally maintains her averages, and whenever diminished 

 southern winds, drought, and locusts have prevailed, the opposite condi- 

 tions are very apt to follow, and give us plenteous harvests in the place 

 of short crops. 



CHANGES THAT FOLLOW THE LOCUSTS. 



^* The invasions into a country of large numbers of animals, whether 

 men or insects, are often followed by changes in the vegetation of that 

 28 G 



