Locust Ravages East of the Mississippi. 203 



in the country to which it is not native, it is unnecessary 

 here to go into detail on these points. Briefly, the species 

 is at home and can come to perfection only in the high 

 and dry regions of the Northwest, where the winters are 

 long and cold and the summers short ; and whenever it 

 migrates and oversweeps the country to the South or 

 Southeast, in which it is not indigenous, the changed con- 

 ditions are such that the first generation hatched out in 

 that (to it) unnatural climate, either forsakes it on the 

 wing or perishes from debility, disease and general deteri- 

 oration. On the soundness of this conclusion depends 

 the future welfare of most of the more fertile States be- 

 tween the Mississippi and the mountains, and science, as 

 well as past experience, shows it to be sound. Upon this 

 hypothesis the people of nearly the whole country, so 

 scourged during the past few years, may console them- 

 selves that the evil is but temporary : they may have 

 to fight their tiny foe most desperately for a short time, 

 but they nevertheless have the assurance that even if he 

 prove master of the field, he will vacate in time to, in 

 all probability, allow of good crops of some of the staples, 

 and that he may not return again for years. On the 

 other hypothesis — for which there is only apparent, and 

 no real reason — ruin stares them inevitably in the face. 



The causes which limit the eastward flight of the winged 

 swarms that come from the Northwest are, with the ma- 

 jority of people, still more difficult to appreciate ; for 

 most persons can see no reason why a swarm that over- 

 runs the western portions of Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, 

 should not extend to the eastern borders of the same 

 States, or into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and eastward. 

 Having previously considered the more occult climatic 

 influences that bear on the belief that they never will, I 

 need only state here, that the principal arguments rest in 



