Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1909-06-19
THE TERRIBLE LOCUST.
south African Farmers Helpless While
Crops Are Ruined.

drops are Hulneu'
South Africa seems to be para
disc to the farmer until the locusts
come. The farmer has been plant
ing wheat for five months, begin
ming with March, and he looks for
IN enormously profitable harvest in
The midsummer month of December.
After plowing and dragging for six
days he has put in a day or two
sowing the wheat by hand and has
kept repeating the process until
hundreds of acres have been plant
ed. There are fields of wheat in all
stages, from the young green stalks
to the yellowing heads of grain. 1t
will be convenient to reap the crop
in the successfully ripening fields,
just as it was convenient to plant it
in installments. The farmer con-
graduates himself on a climate that
makes this method possible. He fig
ures that an investment Of twenty
five bags of seed worth $3.50 will re-
turn him $50 bags of grain worth
1880.
"Baas, die sprinkhaan kom"
('Master, the locusts are coming'),
says his Kaffir servant.
Thus is shattered the dream of
opulence and success as the farmer
drowses one hot, silent midsummer
day in his iron rooted bungalow.
On the horizon over the distant
range of hills lies a long, faint cloud.
1t is a dust colored, narrow line,
with front perhaps seventy miles
wide. 1t blurs the sharp outline of
the hills in the African sunlight.
This is a locust swarm as you see it
first at a distance of thirty or forty
miles. In an hour the line has be-
come light brown fog drifting rap
idly toward you.
The farmer is helpless in face of
the advancing ruin and desolation.
He can only watch the approach of
Inevitable disaster. The landscape
is gradually blurred by the great
brown cloud that spreads and
mounts higher in the sky. Trees
and houses a few miles off become
invisible. The cloud shifts, with
patches of dark brown masses and
gaps of gray or light brown where
the locusts are not so thickly crowd
ed A constant change of shape
and formation gives an appearance
like dense smoke belching from
forest fire. A sound like the distant
breakers of the ocean steals into the
silence. 1t is the whir and roar of
billions of wings beating the air.
The whir becomes louder. Near
by green fields are shaded by the ap-
palling visitation. A few locusts fly
past. There is sudden increase of
the sound to a roar as the army of
insects falls on the land and their
wings throb like a colossal dynamo
revolving at terrific speed. The
bright sun is obscured, and the
ground is in shadow. A building
few rods away cannot be seen. Mil
lions of locusts settle down, while
other millions continue their flight.
The ground is so packed with To-
Gusts that every square inch of earth
is alive. Every blade of grass or
wheat is attacked by as many in
sects as it will hold. A hundred To-
Gusts rush on one stalk, bend it to
earth and consume it in less than
minute. Within ten minutes the
farmers 1000 acres of wheat have
disappeared. Every blade of grass,
every flower, every leaf on the trees,
is devoured. For hours and even
days the maddening roar of the
wings is heard and the unnumbered
hosts continue their flight.
At last, when the plague has
passed, nothing remains but desert
waste, naked of every green thing
for hundreds of miles.-Grand Mag
azine.