AGRICULTURE. 93 



ference of the globe. In the last-mentioned place weare told that 

 in the year It! 15 their numbers caused such a famine that 8,000 

 persons perished of hunger. Returning toward the west and 

 crossing to the north of the Altai range, we come to a very im- 

 portant region, as it is surmised to he the source of the scourge 

 that has so often desolated Southern Russia, Poland, Hungary and 

 the 'lower Danuhian Provinces. 



Here we have arrived in countries bearing a much closer analogy 

 to OUT own. and not dissimilarly situated with respect to the sub- 

 ject of this review. In reading the account of their invasion and 

 progress through those countries in 1747 and 1748, as published in 

 the journals of that day. one is strikingly reminded of the dis- 

 patches that came up from the southwestern counties of our own 

 state in 1873, heralding their progress from station to station, from 

 he southwest, to the .Minnesota river. 



As tin.' years 1747 and 1748 were memorable ones in the history 

 of the locust in Europe, I will give a few extracts from the jour- 

 nals of that time. The reader should hear in mind that the scenes 

 here described were not in the deserts of Arabia, or Tartary. or 

 America, but in the centra! part of populous, civilized Europe. 



First. "HrxoAKv, Jrxn'd, 1748. — The misery is hourly increas- 

 ing. There is no longer grass to feed the kine, and instead of it 

 the locusts are covering the fields knee deep."' 



Jink 28TH. — "The locust has appeared on the Danube and tin' 



Theisse (Hungary) in such numbers that they are reduced to the 



direst necessity. It is all over with the harvest/' 



.IYnk :■)(). — Ki..usKNi;ruu (in northeastern Hungary.) — "The 

 locusts have fixed particularly on the banks of Marasch (Maros, a 

 river running from the Carpathians 4<><> miles through Hungary 

 parallel to the Danube, but in the opposite direction, west, and 

 emptying into the Theisse) : they consume the produce of the 



whole land." 



Id ARM anst aut. July 10. — "Prayers are being offered up in all 

 places where the quail and the locust have not been sent. The 

 hitter are coming from Carlsbad here. The vineyards are alone 

 untouched by these insects. Every other thing which they meet 

 with on their march, the herbage, the forest Leaves, and even the 

 bread in the houses, are booty and food for them." 



As Carlsbad is 50 or loo miles south of EOausenberg, and Har- 

 niaustadt a like distance south of Carlsbad, it appears that they 

 were moving in a southern direction from that place. 



1 f HUM ANSTADT, duly v 24. — "To-day they have poured in on us 



