The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-08-27
h1cH CROPS OF GRAssHoPPERs
More Money in Them at ST. Bushel
Than in Wheat,
From the Chicago Tribune


Than in Wheat,
From the Chicago Tribune,
No fiction can approach the truth regard
Ing grasshoppers in Minnesota when the
blague is ON. At 81 or even SO cents a
bushel grasshoppers have been at least four
Eears out of the last twelve,a more profitable
srop than wheat ever was along the in
somparably fertile valleys and uplands of
The Minnesota ri er. More than once such
bounty has drained the treasures of
prosperous counties to the last dollar within
week after it was offered. The first
FERROUS visitation of the pest since early
h, the sixties was in 1876 In the latter
part of June the farmers began to grow
aaxious, for reports from Dakota were to
;he effect that the young crop of grass
hoppers having drowned every green thing,
Including the leaves ON the trees, were pre-
barring to deluxe the east. July 10 the adj
vance of the destroyer was heralded from
the Big Stone lake country. His path was
desert, without an oasis to relieve the eye
Or succor the furnishing. In the afternoon
bf July - the farmers along the river bot
tom in Nicollet and Blue Earth counties
saw tho sun go out like candle suddenly
hxtinguished.
"GTssshoppers!n That was all they said
The corn plow was stopped where it was
the scythe engaged in moving a swath
through the weeds around the now never-to-
be-harvested wheatfield dropped from the
farmers hand; further farm operations
we're purposeess -everybody abandoned all
bther pursuits and watched the approach or
The ominous gray cloud.
The front edge of the cloud passed over
Eicollet county, and the centre of the
gray, granulated swirling mass hung. seem
ngly undecided, mile above the earth.
Then half dozen fat, insolent fellows, with
launches distended with Dakotah good liv-
Ing, dropped down and folded their wings.
Now it began to pour Never did tine
heavens precipitate a more disgusting, dis
hstrous torrent. People fed TO their houses
and shut the doors and windows. The
grasshopper is a nasty pest. He lives upon
sweet green blades of wheat and corn, and
expectorates tobacco juice upon the slight
est provocation.
Half an hour of the storm and the de-
strover had arrived. During the remaining
hour before shutdown q thousand acres of
waving wheat had disappeared utterly.
The third day the most beautiful sight fer
tile western farms Notwithstanding, undu-
lating fields of corn-was transformed into
a scene of utter desOlation; only the ragged
stumps remained. The meadows tame aud
wild, went next, and then the leaves on the
trees and shrubbery disappeared
'Now," said the farmers, 1--WE shall be
rid of you; there is nothing left for you to
eat, and to eat is your one mission on
earth"
But the farmers had forgotteA that the
grasshopper had two missions on earth !;
The other is to propagate and multiply his
Species 1t is duty he is proud Of and
never neglects. If the verdure of the
locality he is infesting disappears before he
has reached the propagating state he moves
a league onward and fultlls his other mis-
sion. The two missions do not interfere
with each other when he Is ready to devote
himself to the business of raising family
he stops eating-whatever he puts forth
his hand to do he does with will.
The Edmunds bill does not apply to the
grasshopper He is a homogeneous pest,
but his heipmeet is the acme Of fecundity.
An inch below the surface she leaves an egg
fully an inch long and as large as her own
body 1t is more than egg-it is at least 100
eggs each the size and much the
color and shape of grain of
rye, packed snugly together in a
tough membranous covering which defies
the elements. A dozen days OF sunshine in
the following May and these eggs increase
the pest fiftyfold. If a blade of wheat or a
stalk of corn escape the parent no remiss-
ness of the kind will remain reproach to
the children. Until they have flown TO
other fields not green thing will appear on
the surface of the earth. A hundred little
grasshoppers scarcely bigger than flea
viii watch the appearance of each blade of
wheat, and to each hill of corn
there will be thousand. The field in time
is as black as the ploughed field of October
and swarms with a pest that cannot be
fought or destroyed.
To prevent if possible, this visitation of
young grasshoppers, it has been the custom
to offer bounties on the old grasshoppers
before the eggs are Laid. In 1875 Ncollet
nd rati of fy
of So per bushel soon after the pest arrived
from Dakota. The amount did not look
large at first. There are something like
q, 900 adult grasshoppers i'll bushel, Who
would undertake to devote himself ex-
clusively to the destruction of grasshoppers
for consideration of less than 50 per 90
OOO9 That is the way itlooked to the county
officials On the third day after the offer
was made they changed their minds. A
German drove up TO the front door of the
Nicollet county court house at noon with
his farm wagon loaded with sacks of some
thing. 1t was not wheat for the load had
horrible smell The sacks were drenched
with an Offensive brown liquid. little
streams of which trickled through cracks in
the wagon box. 1t was cargo OF grass
hoppers. There were thirty bushels of
them The German drew 500 in cash from
the treasury and drove home In a gallop to
set all his children and hired men TO catch
ing grasshoppers. Inside of a week over
$40, 900 had been paid out, notwithstanding
the bounty had been thrice reduced-to
81 SO, then 81, and finally so cents a bushel.
1t was simple enough One man with a
scoop made of bag of cotton cloth
stretched on a barrel hoop could walk
through meadow or wheat field and catch
grassnoppers at the rate of a bushel an
hour. The most popular method Of Gap
ture, however, was TO line the inner-src of
a wheeled wire-tooth hay-rake with cotton
cloth and drive it at trot wherever the
grasshoppers were thckest. When tho
cloth was covered with four or five bushels
of the pests the rake would be lifted sud
denly, leaving the Grasshoppers writing
under neat winrow OF cotton cloth, from
which they would be eaily transferred into
SACKS. Numerous instances are known,
where two men with such an appliance as
this have capture fifty bu heels of grass
hoppers in day. There is no room for
"fiction" where grasshoppers are concerned.
At this moment parts Of Minnesota are
deluged with the pests.