84 
FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 
“ Cass Co., Missouri, Oc£. 21,1866.— We are overrun with Grasshoppers, which appa¬ 
rently came here from Kansas. They are destroying everything that remains green. 
They have completely swept off our newly-sown wheat. They destroy all remaining 
vegetables, such as cabbage, turnips &c. They even stopped our neighbor across 
Grand River from boiling molasses ; for the old gentleman said that they would persist 
all the time in jumping into his pan. They made their first appearance about October 
8th or 10th. After they had been here some days, they commenced coupling and de¬ 
positing their eggs in the ground. The eggs are encased in a small bag composed of 
some gummy substance.” — Private letter from J. M. App. 
“ Savanna, Andrew Co., Missouri, Dec. 1866. — The people of this county are greatly 
troubled to know, what the big lot of Grasshoppers will do next year. They did not 
do very much harm this year, though their name was legion and they darkened the sky 
in their passage.”— Private letter from A. Kennicott, kindly communicated by Dr. W. 
Stimpson, of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. 
“ Clinton Co., Mo., Nov. 1866. — Grasshoppers have eaten down into the ground every 
blade of green wheat that was sown this autumn, so far as they have exterfded over the' 
country. They came from the west and are moving east as fast as they can, eating up 
all vegetation. They are as numerous as chinch-bugs ever were in Illinois, laying the 
ground full of eggs as they go. Cold nights seem to affect them but little. They rise 
aDd fly the same as a bird, and take very long flights.”— “ B. £.,” in Prairie Farmer , 
Nov. 24, 1866. 
“ Stewartsville, Clinton Co., Missouri, Nov. 15, 1866.—The Grasshoppers have com¬ 
pletely overrun north-western Missouri this autumn. They began to cross the Missouri 
River in September, coming from Kansas and the far West. They came too late for 
this year’s crops, save the autumn-sown wheat ancl rye, which have been entirely 
swept away by them, except in some partial spots. They seem to be pressing on due 
East, depositing their eggs in the ground and literally filling the whole surface of the 
earth with them.” — Private letter from A. Killgore, obligingly sent to me by Mr. S. S. Path - 
von, of Pennsylvania. 
With the exception of Jackson and Cass counties, which lie on the middle of the 
extreme western border of Missouri, all the other districts referred to above lie in the 
north-west corner of the State. St. Joseph, Buchanan county, which will be subse¬ 
quently referred to as a point where grasshopper-eggs hatched out in the spring of 
1867, also lies in the north-w'est corner of the State. Kansas City and Oregon, which 
are referred to in the same series of extracts, lie respectively in Jackson Co. and 
Andrew Co. The whole of these districts, therefore, are separated, by a very wide 
interval, from Illinois. 
WHAT THE HATEFUL GRASSHOPPER DID, WHEN IT HATCHED OUT, IN 
THE SPRING OF 1867, IN THE LOWLANDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
I have inserted here all the facts that I could find bearing upon the above subject, 
omitting, for the most part, what is evidently mere speculation and opinion. Some few 
of the following reports are plainly colored by the same local feeling, that prompts 
almost every Western man to deny that there is any fever and ague, or any mosquitoes 
of any consequence, in his own settlement; although “in such a place,” as he will 
invariably tell you, “ the people are shaking the teeth out of their heads; and as to- 
