The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-22
TEE LOCUST PLAGUE.
California and the Far West Being Stripped
by the Hungry Insects.


San Francisco Chronicle
1t would not be pitching the present article in
an alarmist key to say that large portion of
the foothill region of California is not only
threatened but is being devastated by such
swarms Of grasshoppers that they amount to
nothing short of plague. Grasshoppers have
appeared In lone valley in such numbers as to
amount to a scourge. The grain crop, which
only promised about half yield before, is now
likely to lie utterly ruined. The Sacramento
Bee gives the following from correspondent at
Folsom: The grasshoppers are numerous and
are destroying everything within reach. The
Natoma company has force of about fifty men
continually fighting them and 800 pounds were
captured yesterday, which they offer for sale at
five cents sack, being the cost of the sack. At
zeinwaldts place they are brushing them into
the ditch, and they are so thick that you cannot
soc the water. j. E.. Blanchard says that they
visited his place and did over s.. 900 damage in
one day." MIR. Cashier, of Sheridan, Placer
county, has said that in his part of the country
the grasshoppers numbered five to every stalk of
wheat The Chico Chronicle and Enterprise say
they are destroying everything in some parts OF
Butte county
J. Ell. Miller, of Latrobe tells the editor of a
Sacramento paper that he had fine field of
1000 acres of barley, and in less than twenty
four hours after the hoppers reached it, there
was not the slightest vestge of the crop left even
to the roots, and the ground the next day looked
as if it had just been plowed and narrowed. He
says In the neighborhood of Latrobe and White
Rock the stencil arising from the dead bodies of
the hoppers that clog UP the running streams is
more offensive than the worst aggregation of
slaughter houses. The country for miles around,
usually at this time of the year covered with
long grass and bedecked with wild flowers, pre-
sents a most desolate appearance, and looks as
though it had beensweptby fire. The large farm
ers in that neighborhood have, like Mr.. Miller,
lost their entire crop and the feed on their pas
lures. Those in the neighborhood of White Rock
and GAINESVILLE have suffered equally as bad. An
informant from the Costumes says the grass
hoppers are destroying all the corn-felds in that
vicinity. while the Marysville papers say that
wheatfelds around Smartsvile are being devas-
tated by ''myriads of grasshoppers.'
The compilations refers exclusively TO what
the predatory insects have been and are doing to
the grain crop, but they by no means confine
their attentions to farinaceous diet The
Oroville Mercury says that the grasshoppers
are eating the foliage from orange, peach and
apple trees about Wyandotte, and are also de-
stroying the vegetables in the gardens The
Natoma Vineyard is said to be suffering severely
from the "hoppers," with prospect of their
mischief increasing A gentleman from Rocklin
states that the California Raisin Compauys vine
yard, near that place, has been entirely denuded
by the grasshoppers. Captain Wescott, the
manager of the company's property, says that
while the raisn product of the vineyard was last
year many thousands of dollars the fruit OF the
entire l60 acres of bearing vines will not this
year be over $500. The destruction is almost
complete A Sacramento paper states that
$1,000 acre stock ranch in the southern part of
Ell Dorado county has been entirely Genuded of
everything green, pine and willow trees stripped
of their foliage, and in nearly every instance the
trees vines and shrubs have been entirely killed.
The springs wells. reservoirs, bitches, watering
troughs and streams are filled with dead bodies
of myriadS of the insects in putrid state, the
water has become poisoned, stock refuse to drink
it and the stencil arising therefrom is nauseating
in the extreme.
In Grass Valley the insects are eating the
peaches down to the pits. Information has been
sent to the Office of the State Board of Viticult
ure of serious ravages committed by the grass
hoppers among the vineyards of Napa and Sono-
ma counties. In attacking whey ard they COM
mence with the nearest row, and, after eating
the vines down to the old wood, proceed to the
next and so on. The orchards around Red
Bluff are said TO have been entirely devastated.
The fruit trees and grapevines around Folsom
are being stripped and it is no exaggeration to
say that all the hcp-yards in the northern por-
ton of the State have been eaten up and left en-
tirely bare They have reached the young vine
yards Of Deer creek and the middle Sacramento,
ard have played such havoc with the tender
vineyards that this years crop is nullity.
These are but sample instances of the destruc-
ton committed by the, hungry orthoptera but
they sufficient to show that it needs no pessi-
mist to conclude that California, in the regions
referred to, is suffering from plague. very
by reading of their work of destruc-
ton, but perhaps even better
idea may be gathered from perusing one or two
general facts. The following item, taken from
a Sacramento paper will serve to show that
they are pretty thick in the western part of
Sacramento county; THE California and Ore
gon freight train Of thirty-fve cars got stalled
about mile from Roseville, when coming to
the city, Wednesday night, in consequences Of
the number of grasshoppers that had collected
the train in two, take part to Rosevllle, and
then go back after the remainder" They are SO
thick all along the line of the railroad that the
officials are planning out kind Of plow or
scraper to clear them from the rails In one of
their attacks on an orchard near Gait they not
only cleared off the leaves and green fruit and
dug out the pith from the tender twigs, but also
delved down below the surface and ate up the
young roots. Away up in the Sierras, On the
mountain meadow pastures, grasshoppers and
crickets are cleaning off the heritage, and are
crowding up to the retreating snow line in ad
vance of the arrival Of migratory focks of sneep.
Near Stockton a farmer was SO overrun with
them that they not only filed up his well, but
also forced their way into his house, which, in
despair and disgust he was finally obliged to
shut up and leave
b Nothing in the nature of concentrated action has
been take by the farmers. orchardists and vine
yardists of the State to stay the plague, and it is
quite possible that each of these classes thinks
he is the only one seriously affected. These in
sects have been swept into bitches with
brooms, gathered up on rollers coated with tar,
fought with fire, given over to the pigs and tur
keys. driven into the water, and exercised by
the Chinese priests, but all without avail Nor
will the danger be passed until extreme meas
ures are taken for their determination. What
those extreme measures sometimes amount to
may be judged from what it has been found nee
essary to do in Cyprus. On this island, which
is net larger than Colusa and Yolo counties, the
locust plague kept on increasing, year after
year, until tae whole island was poverty strick-
en- When the English government gained con-
troll of the island, they found that nothing was
done to strike at the bottom of the pest-and &C
ously estimated at from one to three pounds-of