The Wichita city eagle., 1876-03-02
I.ocnst prosnects in 1876.

Some one has announced the fact that
there has been prodigious number of
locust eggs laid all over the northwest
portion of the country lying east of
the Rocky Mountains. Some one has
asserted that the soil of Wyoming,
Montana and Dakota is generally ard
thickly charged with these eggs. Who
this some one is with such vast expo
rience that he has examined the soil all
over such large areas as to enable him
to make the statement, nobody knows.
But some careless editor has set the
gossip's ball in motion, and it has
rolled on from paper to paper,
with one change and another,
until at last the Boston Jour
nal includes Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska in its preposterous scope.
sObseryations show" says this jour
nal, 'lhat last years grasshoppers de-
posted immense numbers of eggs, and
when the warm weather comes and
matches them, devastation, even more
than these sections have previously
known, viii be pretty sure to follow"
| "Observations show" that some edit
ors are very gulliblc, and too ready to
propagate the sensational, and TO dis
semmiate alarming statements on the
flims.est grounds. They publish as
facts the veriest on DIT, without once
inquiring into its probability or caring
for the consequences.
From personal observation in parts
of Missouri and Kansas, and from an
extensive correspondence, | am able to
say that such statements so far as these
two States are concerned, arc entirely
groundless; and / have every reason
to believe that the same viii hold true
of Nebraska; while in Minnesota, the
investigations of the commission ap-
pointed last summer by the Governor
indicate that even where eggs were |
laid in that State, they mostly perish
cd from excess Of moisture which dis |
solved the glutinous substance which |
normally protects and holds them to-
gether. That in some parts of the |
high country lying east Of the noun
tains, especially towards the north, eggs
have been deposited iii numbers by the
swarms which left the lower and more
fertile country devastated last spring,
is not only probable but pretty cer-
tain. But in that region such is TIE
case every year. for it is the native
home Of the swarms which OCCASION
ally extend to the Upper Mississippi
Valley. But The number of eggs laid
in the States o. Missouri, Kansas and
Nebraska by The few struggling in
sects that passed over that country last
fall will not equal that.laid in ordina-
ry seasons by indigenous species. In
Colorado, also, there have been in most
parts such abundant rains since locust
eggs were laid, and the ground has
been so unusually moist that there is
some hope that the bulk of the eggs
are, or viii be, destroyed. The events
of the past eighteen months have so
fully borne out such predictions as |
felt warranted in making that my opin-
ion on this subject may have some
weight.
give it as my belief that, first, in
the three States mentioned there viii
not hatch as many locusts next spring
as would naturally hatch in ordinary
seasons from the eggs of indigenous
species; second, that, compared with
other parts of the country, those States
ravaged by locusts last spring and ear
ly summer viii enjoy the greater i'm
during the same seasons in
1876, not only from locust injuries, but
from the injuries of other obnoxious
insects, except the woodborers. In
short, the people of the ravaged Sec
tion have reason to be hopeful rather
than gloomy, They viii certainly not
suffer in any general way from locust
injuries in the early season: and the
only way in which they can suffer from
the migrating pest is by fresh swarms
later in the year from the northwest,
tie odds being, however, from a num-
ber of reasons, which it is unnecessary
to enumerate here, very great against
any such contingency. There is one
redeeming feature in the .youfmaEs ar
ticle. 1t is the advice to the people of
the States named TO not be profigate
Of the abundant corn crop they have 4
yarnered, but TO store it for an emer-
gency. If nothing short of a false
alarm would cause them to do this,the
might find Justification; but
the season Of 1865 so clearly pointed
TO such course and was SO dearly
bought. that it will not needlessly 90
]. Riley, In Nev York
Tribune. r