The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1909-07-01
PLAGUE OF AFRICA
LocusTs THE MOST TERRIBLE
FOE OF THE FARMER.
Pests That In Their Numbers Are
l%nvincible Destroy Crops While
Owners May Only Look OF
In S%upineness.

South Africa seems to be a paradise
to the farmer until the locusts come.
The farmer has been planting wheat
for five months, beginning with March,,
and he looks for an enormously profit
able harvest in the midsummer month
OF December. After blowing and drag
ging 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 planted.
There r fields of wheat in all stages,
from the young green stalks to the
following heads of grain. It will be
convenient to reap the crop in the sue
cessively ripening fields, just as it was
convenient to plant it in installments.
The farmer congratulates himself on
a climate that makes this method pos
sible. He figures that the investment
for Is bags of seed worth $3.50 will
return him $50 bags of grain worth
$3.50.
"Baas, die sprinkhaan kom" .("Mas-
ter, the locusts are coming'') says his
Kafir servant. Vi
Thus is shattered the dream of op-
ulence and success as the farmer
drowses n hot, silent midsummer
day in his iron-roofed bungalow. On
the horizon over the distant range of
hills lies a long, faint cloud. 1t is a
d~ust-colored, narrow line, with q front
perhaps 20 miles wide. 1t blurs the
sharp outline of the hills in the Afri.
can sunlight. This is a locust swarm
as you, see it first at a distance of 80
or 40 miles. In an hour the line has
become a 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 in.
evitable 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 crowded. A constant change
of shape and formation gives an ap-
pearance like dense smoke belching
from a forest fire. A sound like the
distant breakers of the ocean steals
into the silence. It is the whirr and
roar of billions Of wings beating the
air.
The whirr becomes louder. Nearby
green fields are shaded by the ap-
palling visitation. A few locusts fly
past. There is a sudden increase of
the sound to a roar as the army of in
sects 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 a few rods away cannot be
seen. Millions Of locusts settle down,
while other millions continue their
flight. The ground is so packed With
locusts that every square inch of
earth is alive. Every blade of grass
or wheat Is attacked by as many in
sects as 1t will hold. A hundred To-
Gusts rush on one stalk, bend it to
earth, and consume it in less than a
minute. Within ten minutes the far
mer's 200 acres of wheat have disap-
peared. Every blade of grass, every
flower, every leaf on the trees is de-
voured: For hours, and ever days,
the maddening roar of the wings is
heard and the unnumbered hosts con-
tinue their flight.
At last, when the plague has passed.
nothing remains but a desert waste,
naked of every green thing for hun
dreds of miles.