The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1877-05-02
Farmers Facts about Grasshoppers.

Farmers Facts about Grasshoppers.
The Chicago Tribune has gathered
from Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Ne
braska great deal of curious informa-
tiop about the grasshoppers of the West.
A few suggestive facts reported by the
farmers are worth repeating even on the
Atlantic seaboard, as they give vivid
idea of the beginnings of the locust
plague such as the labored description
of scientific men fails to produce. A
correspondent in Neosho county, Kan
sas, says that the ground is full of eggs,
there being as many as hundred to the
square inch in some places, which will,
in his opinion, stand any amount of bad
weather and hatch when the proper
time comes. But he naively remarks
that all the young grasshoppers that
have been found are "our native ami
mal," and with an agricultural disregard
of grammar he adds: "The Colorado
hopper is different institution entire
ly, as any one acquainted with their
makeup can see at glance" A man
in Franklin county is amazed to think
that the eggs which have been deposited
in that neighborhood can stand the
frosty weather that has prevailed of
late, but be confesses with many misgiv-
ings that such of them as have been put
under the microscope look sound. The
farmers of that region take the whole
matter coolly, and are determined to
meet the 'hoppers firmly and "drive
them into the bitches and destroy
them :" which is new version of the.
heroic determination to welcome the in"
vaders with bloody hands to hospitable
graves. From Labette county corre-
spondent cheerfully announces that the
people there expect to be alive with To-
Gusts in the summer, but that they are
not nervous, as they have kept a lot OF
old grass to burn and have planted
charley, castor beans and pampas, which
are hopper proof"
A farmer in Nemaha county writes
that some of the grasshoppers' eggs were
Matched out during the warm weather in
February, and that even the sceptical
county editor was forced to acknowledge
the fact. He adds "Some of the eggs
are spoiled, but large part are yet
good" Another farmer writes from the
same county, classifying the locusts as
natives and foreigners OF the former
he says: /: "There are some of the na-
tives batching in sheltered localities
some of them are half-grown." Of the
latter he says: "None of the for
eigners are Matching yet that I can find"
A correspondent from Washington
county says that the grasshoppers' eggs
are generally laid in sandy places along
the creeks they that are proof against
cold, but that the. March and April rains
kill them that many have been Matched
out already along southern slopes. He
adds: "We wc cheerful but organ
ized." A farmer in another part of the
same county gives this description OF
the favorite places of the insect
"Roadsides and prairies where the grass
is trodden out, stubble fields, orchards,
corn fields and every other place where
the ground is bare and little hard is
literally full Of locust eggs" A farmer
in Price county, who is probably accr1s-
toned to making political speeches,
gives the law and the state Of public
opinion on the subject Of locusts in some
very large words. He says: "Onr Leg
islature has passed an act authorizing
the road oyerseers to call on oil male
persons to assist in destroying them
should they visit us this season. Burn
ing prairie grass simultaneously in, our
county has been agitated some, with o
view to destroy them after hatched out. "
From Sac City, H., q correspondent
reports that some of the grasshopper
eggs have been Matched out by artificial
means, and that the young locusts have
been exposed to great degrees OF cold
without effect. In Page county some OF
them were put between two pieces of
ice, which were frozen solid and then
thawed, the imprisoned grasshoppers
coming to life and moving off. In other
places the eggs were hatched out by the
family stove and the young locusts were
set in the open air at night and frozen
stiff, but whl put beside the stove again
in the morning they became as lively as
ever. Throughout the whole Northwest
the prairie grass has been spared, and is
left to use against the grasshoppers If
they should come in swarms. Core
spondence from Minnesota indicates that
the people in some parts of the State
will have to fight for their harvests. 1t
is said that some of the experimentalists
in that State have frozen and thawed out
the young locusts as often as three
times. and found them able to hop about
after the third thawing. From Nebraska
comes the same story; but one Of the
farmers of Franklin county in that State
declares that the idea of fighting the To-
Gusts through organizations under the
command of the roadmasters, rs pro-
vided by Nebraska statutes, is as absurd
as would be the attempt to turn the wind
with tanning mills. .-Nev York World.