The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1875-06-29
The flight Of Missouri Locusts.

<*a@ ne FIG mt Oh Missouri AOcusts. j.
[Oregon, Holt County, MOI June 49, Cor
: respondence Chicago T::ibune.] FIJI
To'give you some idea Of the locust
plague, let me describe briefly their
flight. Eleven days ago they began to
pass here overhead. They begin to rise
about 8 o'clock, and by 10 they are
nearly all on the wing. They go as the
wind drives them. Excepting one day,
when we had a wind from the north,
their flight has been from thesouth north
serly: Looking up, at any time between
the hours Of 10 and 4, towards the sun,
sthey:may be seen passing like large snow
takes. rapid!ysas their wings and the
wind can make them. By a large spy
glass. Judge the swarm to be about half
mile deep. And so they 60, day after
down. dow x On "' the e 'nax sS'' of
the day before yesterday, we concluded
the swarms were about exhausted, as not
nearly SO many had passed during that
afternoon, ard We congratulated our
selves on possible future exemption. i. But
yesterday the air was again full Of them :;
and last evening, about six miles north
of this, they came down in line ex.
tending all across the country, in such
tremendous clouds as to frighten people
Many persons that were out ran in doors,
fearing lest they NIGH! be sanothered. A
gentleman, Judge Russell, who was rid
ing along, said that for some time he re-
garded 1t as vast storm-cloud coming
down over the whole land, and the sound
vas said by one to resemble that made by
locomotive and long train of cars.
Now, to-day, with a southeast wind, the
air is again filled with them, flying to the
northwest.
Just think, then, that, as they fly with
an average velocity Of Is miles per hour,
and the width of the swarm is not less
than 80 to Is miles, and that this is now
the sixtieth hour of continuous north
erly flight, and that the swarm is at least
half mile deep. with the locusts not
over four inches apart from each other in
any direction, just think, say, what
numbers of them are here. They are the
very same kind as described in the Agri-
cultural Report for 1862 that many years
ago afflicted Lancaster county, Pa. There
is no mystery or popularity about these.
An accidental chance then favored their
over.production there, just as circum-
stances out West on these plains isalways
favoring them in some places, so that
occasionally they are over-producod,
swarm off, lay eggs, and die. These eggs,
being laid IN the fall late, do not hatch
till spring, and thus come such myriads
Of them as now. But one mig ht imagine
that their leader, if they have one, weep
ing like another Xcrxes at the mortality
of his followers, for those now Matched
and flying will deposit their eggs in such
misti1ne that they must be all Matched
in late October, and all perish during the
winter. This lot will come to an end soon
after laying its eggs. 1t seems to be an
error about the being destroyed by the
red parasites; as Mark Twain would say,
they rather like them and are proud of
them. l have tested that point thor
oughly. They leave them on their old
clothes when they shed off, and new ones
come on them. Iu fact, like the Indians,
locusts arc lousy.