Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-08
THE KANSAS PLAGUE.
Fifteen Years Ago This Week the
Grasshoppers Took Flight
HOW THE EGGS WERE DEPOSITED.
ALI Attempts to Battle With the Destroying
Army We're Futile.
DRIFTING IN THE CITY STREETS
THE EGGS WERE DEPOSITED.
WRITTEN FOR THE p1sPArcH1

| WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH1
Fifteen years ago this week a mighty
cloud of winged insects rose from stricken
Kansas. 1t darkened the sun and then
rolled away to the north and west toward
the Rocky Mountains. In less than one
hour the grasshopper plague had vanished
and hope took the place OF despair in the
hearts of the people.
In the summer of 1874 Kansas suffered
from a severe drouth. In August naked
stalks of weeds and dry blades of grass
ratified at every step of the passer-by. Hot
winds came from the south and the west, and
one day, on the wings of these warm messen-
gers, came a shower of grasshoppers, or
Rocky Mountain locusts. Big fellows they
were, an inch and half in length. They
| hoped about for few days, but finding
little to eat, disappeared almost as suddenly
as they had come. No damage was done to
the crops, for such as had weathered
the trying drouth were all mat1red, The
older settlers shook their heads and said:
''These old hoppers will never trouble Us
again, but there is certain disaster ahead.
We must look out for their many times null
| tiplied progeny. Next spring we shall have
| x ldoohOppCIb III bhdIus, WACkC bulb year
they have come in handfuls."
THE GROUND WAS HoNEYcoMBED.
A careful examination OF the ground
| proved that these fears were well founded.
There were millions of tiny holes in which
| eggs had been deposited. The laying of these
| eggs was, in fact, the sole mission of this
vanguard of the grasshopper army. There
was, of course, much apprehension of COM
| ing hard times. But many forgot what they
had so much dreaded.
Here and there a wise man sold his farm
at much sacrifice and moved away. Others
sought to avert the danger by turning up
every square rod of land on their farms to
the frosts Of winter. In this way many
eggs were doubtless destroyed, but as the
wise old grasshoppers had selected places
| along the roadsides where the ground was
hardest in which to deposit their eggs, the
larger portion of them were left undis-
turbed. Besides, there was no concert Of
action among the farmers, and no syste-
matte efforts made to head off the pest
| Spring came, and with it came all the
busy scenes connected with farm life. Il
was an early season. April saw every crop
| in and we'll under way. May opened in all
her beauty, and yet no sign Of grasshoppers.
But the closing days of that beautiful May
brought the vindication of the prophets.
| ARRIVAL OF THE YOUNGSTERS.
The little grasshoppers began to appear.
| They could be counted at first, and they
were such tiny things. The next day they
had come in countless millions, and for
several days thereafter they seemed to in
| crease in the same ratio, until they were no
| longer estimated in numbers, but the terms
bushels, tons and square miles each in turn
served as a unit of measurement The land
| all at once seemed to have become alive.
The surface was moving in mass, now in
this direction, now in that. Crops disap-
peared as if an all powerful magician with
a single pass of his wand had spoken them
out of existence. The fields were laid as
bare as winter had left them. Gardens bore
not vestige of their recent greenness. The
little insects were particularly fond of onions
and radishes. They ate down to the smallest
hair roots leaving the beds curiously per-
forated. Nothing green on or near the
ground escaped their ravages. except the
leaves of the Usage orange. The hedges Of
this shrub were left untouched.
Suddenly the grasshoppers increased in
size. They had moulted. Then they seemed
to have fondness for city life. They traY-
eled the streets in vast droves. As vegeta-
tion disappeared, they became weak and in
active and no longer tried to get out of the
way of pedestrians. They were crushed in
great number on the pavements.
AS the insects became weakened from lack
of food, they seemed to be greatly affected
by the heat of the sun, and in order TO avoid
it they crowded along the shadows of build
ings on the south side of street. Here
they were piled upon one another against
thu walls of the buildings to the height of q
foot or more. From this came the express
sion, "grasshoppers drifted a foot deep"
The stencil from their crushed bodies was
very trying to the olfactories. Had it not
been for several dashing rains, which cleaned
the streets from end to end, the consequences
might have been much more serious.
LIKE THE FROGS OF EGYPT.
Grasshoppers were eve verywhere. They
came into the houses, and, like the frogs in
plague-stricken Egypt, found their way into
the breadtrays. You break open a biscuit
at meal time, and behold, a grasshopper.
You turn down the bed covers on retiring,
and out jump grasshoppers, Pump spouts
were clogged with the insects. 1t was not
safe to eat anything or to drink In the dark.
Attempts we've made TO harvest the young
grasshoppers. One device was adopted in
Morocco during locust plague more than
a century ago. It was to dig long trench
and drive the grasshoppers into it. Boards
were set up on edge diverging from
the ends of the trench several rods.
As the insects came to the boards, they con-
verged to the brink of the ditch, and their
next movement landed them at the bottom.
They had not yet got their wings, and were
not large enough to jump over the boards or
the trench. The loose earth was then
packed down upon the struggling mass, and
millions of grasshoppers had been de-
stroyed. Did it make any perceptible DIFF
ference in the numbers above ground2 Not
one whit.
1t was a mystery how they lived and grew
after the first wholesale destruction of crops,
but they must have found something to eat,
for many OF them lived to get away from
the land which they had turned into .
waste. With an energy such as is sure to
follow every great disaster, the farmers went
TO work and replanted their fields. Corn
was the principal crop. Some of it matured,
but the greater part made only fodder:
Although there was no very widespread
destitution as a result of the grssshoppe1
visitation, much financial distress on ac-
count OF it was felt for several years.