The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1874-09-04
THE GRAssHOPPERS.
The I'Ia$ue-Remedies Sus
Sested.
from the New York Herald.

From the New York Herald.
The grasshopper plague in the
northwestern states of the Missis-
sippi basin is approaching the di-
mansions of a national calamity,
threatening nothing less than gen.
eral ruin TO millions of industrious
and prosperous people. Last
year, from the destructive ravages
of these grasshoppers or prairie
locusts in half dozen counties of
Iowa, large body of homestead
settlers therein were reduced to
restitution, and most of them in
the winter would have died ofstar-
walton or sickness resulting from
want of food but for the timely
supplies of subsistence sent over
to them. Those settlers, knowing
that the grasshoppers would be
again upon them with the return
of the summer, petitioned congress
for the privilege of abandoning
their homesteads and seeking q
living elsewhere for a year or two,
hoping that then they might safe
ly return to the cultivation oftheir
fields with the removal of of the
nuisance. Congress granted the
prayer of the memorialists, and
most of them are now supposed to
be working in the gold and silver
mines of the Rocky Mountains.
Now we apprehend that con-
gress, at it's coming session, will
have to extend this privilege OF
absenteeism to other large bodies
of homestead settlers, not only in
Iowa, but in Minnesota, Montana,
Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, for
in all these territoriers and states,
to considerable extent, the grass
hoppers have despoiled the farmer
fhis growing crops and laid waste
his fields as by consuming fire.
We cannot imagine, however, that,
from the remaining bountiful sup
plies of food of the great north
west, there will be any slackness in
measures of relief to the unfortu-
nate people who now have to de-
pend for the winter upon the gen
crosby of their more lucky fellow
citizens. This immediate difficult
ty, without any serious embarrass-
ment to any one of the states or
territories concerned, can and will
be promptly overcome; but the
more important questions, "What
is the prospect against the grass
hoppers for the people of this in
tested section? Is the farmer
and his family, or is the grasshop-
per and his numerous progeny to
be expelled" still remain IMAM
swered.
From simple arithmetical cal
culation it is apparent that if the
western grasshoppers go On in
creasing for even two years more
as they have increased within the
last two years, most of the lands
under cultivation in Minnesota,
Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas will be
swept clean of their growing crops,
and those states will be permanent
ly abandoned by thousands of their
best people, while thousands of
immigrants will be diverted to 9TH
or sections of the country to escape
his plague of grasshoppers.
We believe, however, that these
insects may be so far destroyed
and kept down as to be rendered
comparatively harmless. They
have several times threatened to
eat out the Mormons in Utah, but
the Saints, by rollers, by fire and
water and other appliances, have
invariably come of the conquer
ors. By fire or quicklime the grass
hoppers' eggs may be destsoyed,
and they are generally SO thickly
laid, over small areas of ground, as
TO be convenient for wholesale
roasting. After they are Matched,
and while they yet move feebly
over the ground in a dense mass,
they may be destroyed as the
Mormons destroy them. When
thus reduced to comparatively
harmless numbers, let the farmers
concerned keep On hand large
fiocks of turkeys, guinea fowls and
chickens, and they will turn the
grasshoppers to good account
But if the place where a cloud
of grasshoppers have settled and
deposited their eggs is known and
marked the destruction of the
next brood, before the Matching oil
before the Hedging, may be easily
ACCOMPLISHED.