Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1913-09-17
Kansas Tells of Scourge That
Hurt Region in Seventies.
Story of a Sig Grasshopper Time
Graphic Description of Swarm
That Came Like Cloud and
Oevasted the Fields.

Kansas City.-Grassho in Kan
sas, Ell? It's been long time since
we heard that cry, and sorrowful
enough one tits, grasshoppers in
Kansas. They came the first time,
Tom, in IA, when your father was
just wee bit of youngster. He
says he can still remember how he
used to hate to step out the back
door, because the hoppers flew up all
whirred in his face.
You hear a lot of 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 '7Os
came a heap nearer being the bible
kind of locusts-the kind Moses
brought down upon the land of Egypt
to "eat up every green thing" That's
what these miserable pests did all
right
1t was late summer-most of the
small grain had been harvested when
they appeared first. I'd gone to town,
named after-a little bit of a shaver
he was then, about ten-was riding
herd on little bunch Of cattle. Every
body had some work to do in those
early days in Kansas, even the young
sters He had little old pony, gentle
it was, and it was his job to see that
our cattle didn't stray off-there
weren't any fences to speak of in a
good part of Kansas in IA.
Well, sir, it's the same story that
every one'll tell you that saw the
hoppers-they came like cloud be-
fore the sun. Way, way up in the air
they flew, two, three hundred feet
above the earth and when you looked
up you could see their wings glittering
in the sunlight like little flakes or
silver-or like snow, some folks said.
We'd heard about EN- before, but 1t
seems like you can never quite realize
a thing of that sort till you see it.
And then they began to drop down
all around, and it seemed like they
hardly got to earth before they COM
menced to eat.
They weren't particular what they
ate, either, just SO twas green. You
could watch them start on field OF
corn-first the tassels and the silk and
the new tender shoots and then the
edges of the big, broad leaves, and
finally the stalks themselves. drove
home pretty quick, but when l got
there there wasn't a sign of your
Uncle Tom or of the cattle. They'd
just taken out for Nebraska, 1t looked
like. / got on a horse and rode along
their trail-it was broad enough so a
green New Highlander couldn't have
lost it and in about three hours or
SO found 'em. The cattle had
stampeded when the hoppers came
they settled on 'em thick, on their
eyes. their noses, all over 'em-and
they put down their heads and
plunged off for the north, sullen and
stubborn-Tom said for good while
he didn't know whether they meant to
stop any short of Nebraska. But the
little fellow kept along after them and
finally they were plumb played out:
/ wonder if you can imagine what
1t 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 was what
happened when the grasshoppers
came, and the fields, too, bare and
brown, as if you'd peeled the crops
right off them.
They ate the very grass and dis
carded wheat straw was boarded that
year-we used it to feed the cattle
during the winter. AS the gTasshop
pers ate the country bare and went
on, or died, they left their eggs be
hind