The New York herald., 1868-06-07


sought after in the future than they have been
in the past in England, France and Germany.
The Grasshopper Plague Of the West and
tho Army Worm OF the South.
In the Western border States of the Missis-
sippi valley, from Iowa down to Texas, and in
the great basin between the Rocky Noun
tains and the Sierra Nevada, we are begin
ming to hear more and more every year of the
destructive ravages of grasshoppers. They
are all of the locust family, and from the de-
scription we remember of Utah specimen
brought eastward as a curiosity some time ago
we believe that this Utah variety as nearly re-
sembles the African and Asiatic locust as the
Louisiana alligator does his older congener,
Mrs. Malaprop's ''allegory on the banks of the
Nile" According to Professor Agassiz the
vertebrates, mammalia, reptiles and birds of
the American Continent and its Indigenous
vegetable productions adapted to animal life
are as far inferior in size, development, quality
and variety to those of the Old World as our
native Indian is, as man, inferior to the Cau-
casian. This rule will hardly apply to the
California grizzly bear or the Canadian moose,
nor do we think it will hold good with the ar
ticulates of the dry land or the insect family.
At all events, this Western plague of grasshop-
pers is plague of locusts, such as they are,
and with the extension of agriculture into the
plains and mountains this plague is alarmingly
increasing.
nh iooIJx fbo Tod rot rh
consisting of four great divisions-the Allan
tic slope, the Mississippi valley, the great
basin between the Rocky Mountains and the
Sierra Nevada, and the Pacific slope-may be
reduced to two great sections-the European
section, east of the great plains to the
Atlantic, and the Asiatic section, west
from those plains to the Pacific;
for while the one section is European
in its geographical features and productions
the other is boldly and strikingly Asiatic. The
Indians of these two sections, in their habits,
as in their habitat, before disturbed by the
white man, differed as widely from each other
as the wandering tribes of Tartary differed
from the Northern barbarians that submerged
the Roman empire. We dare say, however, that
the Indians of the American plains have never
been as seriously damaged by the grasshoppers
as the Arabs of Asia and Africa, because Of
the sweeping annual autumnal fires of our
plains, which have served to consume the eggs
deposited by insects as well as the germs Of
timber from year to year. But with the ex-
tension of cultivation into these Western plains
and mountains the patches are multiplied
which are exempted from these annual fires,
and here these grasshoppers are propagated.
In the great basin, where they have dupi-
cate of the Sea of Galilee, the river Jordan
and the Dead Sea, vast region, which is
generally desert in its character, is sprinkled
with green places, or oases, seldom disturbed
by fire, and hence in Utah the grasshoppers
were found by Fremont in his first explora-
tions around the Great Salt Lake so abund-
ant that they had become a staple article Of
diet among those Indians, and by the same
processes of catching and cooking as are en-
ployed by the Arabs around the Dead Sea.
Some ten years ago the Mormons were seri-
ously apprehensive of a famine from the
ravages of the grasshoppers among their grow
ing fields, but in q general turnout of the
saints, as in holy crusade of determination,
the enemy was routed.
Still, from the facts suggested the conclu-
sion follows that from the Rocky Mountains
to California our people, as they multiply,
will be more and more liable to famine
from the multiplication Of the grasshoppers
with the increase of cultivated lands
exempt from fires. Here is q matter worthy
the consideration of some efficient remedy by
scientific men. The same may be said Of the
Southern army worm, which, in Arkansas,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas especially,
has become such a scourge to the planter as to
make the production of even a bale of cotton
from hundred acres very doubtful question.
are neither autumnal fires nor wintry frosts to
destroy the eggs of these insects, and when they
come forth it is in such myriads that the sur
face of the ground over thousands Of acres at
times appears to be in motion. Now, we
would ask the question, what is our Agricultu-
raj Bureau at Washington worth that 1t cannot
elicit some discovery as a remedy for these
evils Of grasshoppers and army worms, which,
unless checked, may, in the event of some un-
usually dry season, reduce millions of people
to starvation2 The cereals and fruits of the
North are beginning to suffer more and more,
year after year, from other insects, which may
be charged to the wanton destruction of the
birds by idle boys and full grswn loafers, in the
way of amusement. To remedy this mischief we
must begin in the public school; but the remedy
for the plaques of the grasshopper and the
army worm might well be considered as en-
titled to special bounty or premium through
an act of Congress.
VERY GooD-The speech of Andy John