The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-09-05
BIG GRAssHOPPPEK YARNS.
Some of the Stories They Tell About Them
In the West.

BIG GRASSHOPPPER YARNS.
!! Some of the Stories They Tell About Then
In the West.
No fiction can approach the truth re
garding grasshoppers in Minnesota whe1
the plague is on. At 81, or even so cents
bushel grasshoppers have been for foul
years out of the last twelve more profit
able crop than wheat ever was along the
incomparably fertile valleys and uplands
of the Minnesota River. More thar
once such bounty has drained the
treasures of prosperous. counties to the
last dollar within a week after offered
The first serious visitation of the pest
since early in the SOS was in 1887, says
the Chicago Tribune. In the latter part
,of June the farmers began to grow
anxious, for reports from Dakota were tc
the effect that the young crop of grass
hoppers having drowned every green
thing, included the leaves on the trees;
were preparing to deluge the East. July
10 the advance OF the destroyer was
heralded from the Big Stone Lake
county. His path was desert, without
an oasis to relieve the eye or succor the
famishing. In the afternoon Of July Il
the farmers along the river bottom IN
Micoliet and Blue Earth counties saw the
sun go out like candle suddenly ex.
tinguished.
1tGrasshoppersro That was all they
said.
The eornplow was stopped where ii
was, the scythe engaged IN moving q
swath through the weeds around the now.
never-to-be-ha harvested wheatield dropped
from the farmers hand; further farm
operations were purposeless-every body
abandoned all other pursuits and watched
tht, approach Of the ominous gray cloud.
The front edge .of. the cloud passed
over Nicollet county, and the center OF
the gray, grannlated, sWiring mass hung,
seemingly undecided, q mile above the
earth. Then half dozen fat, insQlent
fellows, with paunches distended with
Dakota good living, dropped down and
folded their wings. Now it. began to
pour. Never did the heavens precipi.
tate mo re disgusting, disastrous torrent.
People f.sd to their houses and shut the
doors and windows. The grssshopper
is a nasty pest. He lives upon sweet
gseen blades of wheat and corn and
ezpectorates tobacco juice upon the
slightest provocation.
Half an hour of the storm and the
destroyer had arrived. During the re-
manning hour before sundown thousand
acres of waving wheat had disappeared
utterly. The third day the most beauti-
full sight fertile Western farms afford
luxuriaat, undulating fields of corn
was transformed into scene of utter
only the ragg d stumps re-
manned. The meadows, tame and wild,
vent next, and the leaves on trees and
shrubbery disappeared.
"Now," said the farmers, ''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 forgotten that
the grasshopper has 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
yerdure of the locality he is infesting
disappears before he has reached the
propagating stage he moves a league
onward aud .fulfls his other mission.
The two ,peissiIns do not interfere with
each other; when he is ready to devote
himself to the business of raising a
family be stops eating-whateVer he
puts forth his hand to do he does with q
will.
The Edmunds bill does not apply to
the grasshopper. He isa homogeneous
I,est, but his helpmeet is the acme OF
lie cundity. An inch below the surface
SIZE leaves an egg fully an inch long and
IS large as her own body. It is more
thsn an egg-it is at least 100 eggs, each
the size and much the color and shape
OF arrain of rye, packed snugly togeth-
or in tough membranous covering
which defes the elements. A dozen
DAYS of sunshine in the following May
and thea eggs increase the pest fifty
fold. II a blade of wheat or q stalk OF
corn escap ed the parents no renissness
of the kind will remain reproach to
the children Until they have flown to
other fields OF green thing will appear
On the surfae of the earth. A hundred
little grasshoI 'pers, scarcely bigger than
= flea, will wat ch for the appearance OF
each blade of heat, and to each hill OF
corn there villa j be thousand. The field
IN time is as blas k as the plowed field OF
October, and swa rms with a pest that
cannot be fough$. or destroyed.
To prevent, if ss ,ssible, this visitation
of young grssshopp ers 1t has been the
custom to offer bo untles Oh the old
before the eggs are laid.
In 1876 Nicollet anea Blue Earth coun.
ties offered bounty ."f - per ousne!
soon after the pest aEEi 7ed from DaAota'
The amount did not loo k large 1t hrst.
There are something hb 2o,o0O adult
in iMsheA'' VINO Wouio
undertake to devote hjms elf exclusively
to the destruction of gras shoppers 1or
consideration of less than sS per O,ooo'
That is the way it los ,ked t. the county
officials. On the th ird day alter the
offer was made thy changed tnell
minds. A German d, owe up to the front
door of the Nicollet &C unity court mouse
at noon with his far N wagon loaded
with sacks of somethi. 2g. 1t was moi
wheat, for the load had horrible smell
The sacks were drenched. with q OMEN
sive brown liquid, strs azns OF Whcf
trickled through cracks in the wagon
box. 1t was cargo of grasshoppsssrs
There were thirty bushels OF them. Ihe
German drew $50 in cash rom tho treas
urer and drove home in saliop to SCI
all his children and hired L len to eaten