Every summer brings with it the potential of crop damage from grasshoppers.
Yet as problematic as these voracious insects are, their effect is nothing compared to the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s. 1874 was the worst of the 'hopper years. Spring and early summer had been kind to crops, but one sunny day the sky darkened. This was no regular storm, but swarms of grasshoppers. The insatiable creatures ate everything that was green.