put in a state of thorough cultivation, and planted. Early in June 

 rows of cotton adjacent to the ditches draining this basin were damaged 

 by grasshoppers, but little attention was paid to the particular species, 

 as the area attacked was considered insignificant. Nothing was done 

 to suppress this miniature outbreak or to avoid a repetition of it the 

 following year, but the situation was no more threatening than that 

 witnessed on neighboring plantations a few } r ears previous. 



The vigor of the attack in 1899, spreading perhaps from different 

 infesting areas for hundreds of miles, was unexpected, and no effort 

 was made to check the young grasshoppers at the time when remedial 

 measures are more or less effective. So little attention was paid to 

 the grasshopper situation that the early molts had taken place and the 

 nymphs had reached a considerable size before a condition almost equal 

 to a plague was realized. 



The ravages upon Dahomy began in and around the basin and spread 

 in a northwesterly direction until more than 5,000 acres of corn and 

 cotton were involved. 



Mr. P. M. Harding, representing the owners of Dahomy, outlined 

 in the following letter to the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, the gravity of the situation: 



Vicksburg, Miss., July 6, 1899. 



Dear Sir: I sent you by express yesterday from Benoit, Miss., some specimens of 

 corn and cotton stalks and other vegetation, together with a box of grasshoppers, for 

 your examination, and in the hope that you may render us some immediate assist- 

 ance in the matter of destroying the grasshoppers that are devouring our crops of 

 cotton, corn, oats, millet, and pease. 



I beg to explain that I represent the Equitable Company of New York, which has 

 recently acquired the large plantations formerly owned by the late Mr. James S. 

 Richardson, including what is known as the Dahomy property in Bolivar County, 

 Miss., which consists of about 19,000 acres of land, with between 9,000 and 10,000 

 acres in cultivation, and which is the largest cotton plantation in the South. It is on 

 this property that the grasshoppers are doing the greatest damage, and unless their 

 ravages are terminated by some means at a very early date I am satisfied they will 

 entirely eat up the crops. 



The grasshoppers made their appearance on Dahomy early in the spring, feeding 

 first on the vegetation along the sloughs, the edge of the timber, and on the ditch 

 banks. I was on this property about three weeks ago, and found that while they 

 were rapidly increasing in numbers they had done but little damage to the crops, 

 eating a little young cotton at the end of the rows along the ditch banks, and here 

 and there we saw where they had cut some of the stalks of corn at the ends of the 

 rows, and they were about that time beginning to feed on the oats. My managers 

 have been reporting from time to time of their increase, but not until ten days ago 

 did they report that they were going away from the ditch banks and completely 

 covering the fields. 



I have just returned from this property, and beg to give you my observations con- 

 cerning the damage done to the various crops, as follows: 



Cotton. — They have totally destroyed 300 acres. What I mean by totally destroy- 

 ing this acreage is that they have eaten all of the foliage off of the stalks, killing 

 the stalk completely, and on a large part of this 300 acres there is not a vestige of 

 stalk left, the ground being as bare as when it was first broken up for planting. 



