Chronological History. 



33 



chusetts and Vermont, at several periods during the latter 

 part of the last century. 



HISTORY OF THE RAVAGES OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN 

 LOCUST 



Coming now to the chronological history of the particu- 

 lar Rocky Mountain species in question, anything like 

 substantial records fail us, and in order to give the 

 following summary of its devastations during the present 

 century, I have had to ransack the files of hundreds of 

 periodicals, and to depend on a number of fugitive arti- 

 cles published during the last twenty-five years. 



In 1818 and 1819, according to Neill's History of Min- 

 nesota, vast hordes of locusts appeared in Minnesota, 

 eating everything in their course; in some cases the ground 

 being covered with them to the depth of three or four 

 inches. In the same years they were extremely injurious 

 in the Red River country in Manitoba. In 1820, or the 

 succeeding year, we hear of their falling upon the western 

 counties of Missouri, as described in the following items : 



"We were informed by old residents of "West Missouri and 

 some of the Indians, that long ago, I think it was in 1820, there 

 whs just such a visitation of grasshoppers as is now afflicting us. 

 Th y came in the autumn by millions, devouring every green thing, 

 but too late to do much harm. They literally filled the earth with 

 their eggs, and then died. The next spring they hatched out, but 

 did but little harm, and when full fledged left for parts unknown 

 Other districts of country have been visited by them, but so far as 

 I could learn, they have done but little harm after the first year." — 

 S. T. Kelsey, Ottawa, (now of Hutchinson,) Kansas, in Prairie 

 Farmer, June 15, 1867, p. 395. 



A Missouri paper publishes a statement by an old settler that 

 great numbers of grasshoppers appeared in Sept. 1820, doing much 

 damage. The next spring they hatched out, destroying the cotton, 

 flax, hemp, wheat and tobacco crops ; but the corn escaped uninjured. 

 About the middle of June they all disappeared, flying off in a south- 

 east direction. — Western Rural, 1867. 



It is reasonable to suppose that these 1820 swarms also 

 ravaged Kansas and the country to the northwest, very 

 3 



