The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-01-25
Grasshopper Starvation and
Hay-burning.
Letter to Chicago Times from Mankato, Mime
enfa.


Letter to Chicago Times from Mankato, Mime
sota.l
Your correspondent has returned
from an extended trip among the peo-
pie of this region impressed with full
sense of the importance of the great
plague to the producing interests of
the West and TO the general interests
of the entire country. Here are thou
sands of families who came West but
four or five years ago, and in most in
stances spent every dollar of their pos
sessions in locating farm, building 8
small house, and supplying food until
the first harvest-tine. And here they
are, to-day, many of them not having
harvested dozen bushels of grain in
the years of their stay. Yet they hope
and trust in an early end of the scourge.
In Cottonwood County, IS miles from
this point, far beyond sight of the last
tree between the "big woods" and the
Missouri, your correspondent passed
the night with settler who has a wife
and FIVE children. This man gave up
a professorship to make himself home
in the West. He spent his last dollar
in preparing for his first harvest over
four years ago. The harvest-time
came, and with it came the locust in
clouds, and with a rush and roar that
terrified all who heard the strange
sound. On the following day, the de-
stroying visitors took wings and
dew to other fields, leaving
the grief-stricken family to CLEAN
a bare dozen bushels from the ground
that, a day before, had promised hum
dreds. This family, to-day, has roof
overhead and four walls of pine around,
but in all the four years have had no
luxury, and few of the comforts of life,
yet they cling tenaciously to their
"home" and its 100 acres. They have
tested the climate, and have found it
health giving and vigor-inspiring; they
have tested the soil, and found it mar
velous in its OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES, it
is theirs. l was enabled to CLEAN much
interesting and valuable Information
from this man as he sat beside his hay
stove, occasionally feeding it with a
twist Of prairie hay that kept the iron
at a red heat and dispelled all thoughts
of freezing while under It's cheerful in
huence. For eight weeks this family
has subsisted upon beans, turnips and
milk, and for the many weeks to come,
for how long nobody can foresee, the
same cheap means of sustaining life
will be depended upon, with an occa-
sional treat of corn-meal or -four.
Three COWS, kept farrow, furnished the
milk. In querying as to the course he
would pursue should he fail to obtain a
supply of his staple article of food, 1
suggested that by butchering one of
his oxen he might have meat for food,
and it would give him a
supply for some time. This sug-
gestion brought troubled look to his
face, and he went to a drawer in his Ii
brary case that occupied one corner of
the room, took therefrom package of
documents, each bearing across it the
words ''chattel mortgage" These, he
said, were deposited with him as town
clerk, according to the Minnesota law,
and were conditional bills of sale of
nearly every live creature belonging to
the inhabitants of his township, except
such as are human. The packages also
contained mortgages of furniture and
some valuable keepsakes, all given to
secure the payment of money borrowed
at and 3 per cent month to keep the
wolf from the door, and it is a criminal
offense to remove from the township,
secrete, Intentionally injure, or to kill |
any thing so mortgaged. This is
why many do not leave the country to
remain until the plague passes away.
They can not get away. The children
in this family are barefooted and bare
headed, yet are healthy, bright, and
cheerful. Their education is carefully |
attended to by the father, and, although |
surrounded by evidences of want, if not |
actual suffering, their future will I'M
doubtedly be as bright and prospe ous
as if marble halls surrounded them, and |
milk and honey were their food.
At Worthington, the seat of this
colony, is steam-mill that sends off
by rail hundred barrels of the finest
and best flour manufactured in the
State, daily. The little gleanings of
wheat-felds, after the locusts had left
them, and the crops harvested from
many fields scarcely touched by them,
finds its way to this mill, and the
quality of its manufacture is proof of
the value of the climate and soil when
the locust plague shall pass away. This
mill is operated by steam, and the
steam is generated by the burning of
hay. To see the monster fiy-wheel re-
volving at a speed 80 times a minute
indicates solution of the fuel ques-
ton that has so long stood as barrier
to the settlement of our western prai-
ries. The universal answer of these
settlers, when asked how they got along
without wood or coal, is: go, that is
the least of our troubles. We find hay
to be much cheaper than wood, even if
we owned wood-lots within a days
drive" The hay can be put in the
stack at each mans door at cost less
than two dollars ton, and ten tons
will furnish fuel for one stove through
the winter. And this hay the settlers
put up while they have no other work
to do, and would otherwise be idle. In
geRious individuals among these settlers
have patented hay-burning stoves and
machines for twisting the hay into
knots or sticks, and so tucking in the
ends that they remain firm though han
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