Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1913-09-11
STATE HIT BY PEST
Kansas Tells Of Scourge Tha,
Hurt Region ID Seventies.
Story Of Big Grassfopper Time
Grsphic peserlption Of Swarm
That Came Like 4 Cloud and
Devaated tho Fieids.

Kansas City.-Grasshoppersst III kan.
saa, Ell? It's beensa long time since
we heard that cry, and d sorrowful
enough one it Il, too-graashoppsrs I'M
Kansas. They came the first time.
Tom, In ~. when your father was
Just d wee bit of q yonngsters He
says he can still remember how he
used to hate to step out the back
door, because the hoppers few up all
around him and above his head and
.Whirred Id his face.
You hear d lot or foolish talk, runs
an old timers story IN the Kansas
City Times, every year about the
seventeen year locust, but the Rocky
mountain grasshoppers Of the 70s
came heap nearer being the bible
kind of locusts-the kind Moses
brought down upon the land Of Egypt
70 EAT up every green thing That's
what these miserable pests did All
right. !.
II was late siImmer-most OF the
small grain had been harvested when
they appeared first. I'd gone to town,
and your Uncle Tom, that you're
named after-a little bit Of q shaver
he Was then. about ten-was riding
herd on a little bunch Of cattle. livery.
body had some work to do In those
early days In Kansas, even the young
sters. He had a little Old pony, gentle
1t was. and 1t was his job to see that
u cattle didn't stray oF--there
weren't any fences to speak Of in d
good part of Kansas In "A.
Well, sir, it's the same story that,
every one'M tell you that saw the
hoppers--they came like q cloud hes
fore the sun. Way, way up lii the air
they few, two, three hundred feet
above the earth and when you looked
up you could see their wings g~littering
In the sunlight like little flakes or
silyeror like snow, some folks said.
We'd heard about EN- before. but II
seems like you can never quite realize
q thing Of that sort till you see II.
And then they began to drop down
all around. and it seemed like they
hardly got to earth before they COM
menced to eat.
abEGA hCt6N WAdtrftACy
ate, either, Just 50 twas green, You.
could watch them start on q field Of
corn-.frst the tassels ard the silk and
the Q tender shoots and then the
edges OF the big; broad leaves, and
finally the stalks themselves. / drove
home pretty quick. but when ! got
there there wasn't a sign of your
kTTpa1a H,rrneov nf@4ba .oyfJn rsI, n,ys1
Just taken gu. for Nebraska, 1t looked
like. ! got on a horse and rode along
their trail-it was broad enough Sc q
green New Englander couldn't have
lost 1t. and In about three hours or
SO I found EN-. The cattle had
starnpeded when the hoppers came
they settled on ZEN thick, on their
eyes, their noses, all over em--and
they put down their heads and
plunged of for the north, sullen and
stubborn-Tom said for q good while
he didn't knowwhether they meant to
stop any short OF Nebraska. But the
little fellow kept along after them and
finally they were plumb played out:
I wonder II YOU can imagine what
IT looks like to see trees stripped naked
In the middle Of summer-just stand
ing there With the bare branches and
no hint OF green. That vas what
happened when the grasshoppers
came, and the fields. too, bare and
brown. as II you'd peeled the crops
right of them.
They ate the very grass and dis.
= = ~ xrtx~ yk~n- -, x~v~r - At.4
year-we used 1t to feed the cattle
during the winter. Az the grasshop-
pers ate the country bare and went
on. or died. they left their eggs be
hind.