The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-07-14
sRAssHoppERs.
A Kansas Farmer Tells What. He
Knows About Them.

A Kansas Farmer Tells What n,
Knows About Them.
/ A New York Telegram reporte,
was providentially allowed brie1
chat with Kansas grasshoppe,
man yesterday. He said:
"That's the kind of insect that
devastated good part Of the South
in 1874, and spread famine far and
wide. Talk about war and para.
graphers They can't compete with
grasshoppers. They get in their
fine work, and can discount every
thing outside of cyclones"
The speaker held in his hand q
little box with glass lid contain
ing the dreaded bug. It had red
legs and plate-glass wings. 1t was
killed teRyears ago.
II kept it as a souvenir of the
grasshoppers of 1874. Lord, but
that was time. l lost every blessed
thing had growing then, and had
one of the best farms in Kansas.
"It was one of the finest days of
the year. We were sitting on the
stoop, when my Maria, a child of
eight, said:
Say, dad, look at that funny red
cloud with silver edges. 1t looks
as if it was alive
"'Sakes alive, so it does,' says
the hired man. Look how fast it
moves
my wife grew frightened, too,
and the children huddled together
closely. A strange dread came over
US all as we looked at the queer
moving cloud. 1t came a-whoopin',
making big noise and growing
louder till it filled the whole sky,
although it was miles away. II got
black, but round the edges there
was strange silvery Pickering that
was mighty purity.
"'My God! It's grasshoppers =
said my wife, who could see farther
than me.
"Sure enough, it was the grass
hoppers.
"They flew at race-horse speed,
and soon we could see their red
legs, and it got as dark as night
while they whirled around above
our heads and finally settled down
a foot thick all over the farm. My
wife tuck the Mysteries then and
thar, and cried like child skeert
to death.
"Soon the hoppers began to crawl
among our feet and we had to club
them off the stoop. Bushes and
trees broke under them with their
weight, and when you met the col
umn, it divided on every side till
you were standing up to the kree
in the living mass. People met
them with long clubs, built barri-
cades and fired among them with
guns, killing millions, but it was
only drop in the bucket. Nothing
but the power of the Creator could
stop them, and at last people left
them alone. Freight trains were
struck by 'em.
Zone day they formed in column
and suddenly started on their
march. They didn't leave single
thing but the fences and bodies of
trees.
"The country looked as if it had
been in the hands of an earthquake.
They marched on through Missouri
and Arkansas till they came to
Texas. By that time the winter
was coming on and the early frosts
froze 'em solid.
"They had laid their eggs, how
ever, before they left, and next
spring the fields we're alive with
young hoppers. We killed carload
on carload of them, but the more
we killed the more they multiplied.
Every one was in terror till the
next harvest, when suddenly they
all rose and skipped the country
and went South. 1t appears they
never eat the herbage where they
are born, but move to some other
place on their work of destruction.
"The third year more appeared,
but the fourth year we could not
find one. Then farmers got into
the way of killing off grasshoppers
in the egg, and that settled them"