The Hayti herald. (Hayti, Mo.) 1908-1922, 1913-09-11
STATE HIT BY PEST
Kansas Tells of SCourge The I
Hurt Region in Seventies.
Story Of a Big Grasshopper Time
Graphic Description of Swarm
That Came Like a Cloud and
Devasted the Fields.

Kansas City.-Grasshoppe in Kan
sas, eh? It's been long time since
we heard that cry, and a sorrowful
enough one it is, grasshoppers in
Kansas. They came the first time.
Tom, in IA, when your father was
just a 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
around him and above his head and
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.
and your Uncle Tom. that you're
named after-a little bit of 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
1t 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 onell 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 fakes or
silver-or like snow. some folks said.
| We'd heard about 'em 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 | got
there there wasn't sign OF your
Uncle Tom or OF the cattle. They'd
| In fal nts fnr 10 ai
like. got on horse and rode along
their trail-it was broad enough so O
green New Englander couldn't have
lost 1t, and In about three hours ol
SO found 'em. The cattle hat
stampeded when the hoppers came :
they settled on EN- thick. ON theil
eyes, their noses, all over 'em-ant
they put down their heads ant
plunged of for the north, sullen ant
stubborn-Tom said for a good whili
|, he didn't know whether they meant t
stop any short of Nebraska. But tn,
, little fellow kept along after them an,
finally they were plumb played out
! wonder II you can imagine wha
II looks like to see trees stripped nake
In the middle of summer-just stand
! ing there with the bare branches an
no hint of green. That was wha
happened when the grasshopper
came. and the fields. too. bare an
brown. as II you'd peeled the crop
l. right on them.
d They ate the very grass and dii
r carded wheat straw was boarded tha
d year-we used It to feed the catti
a during the winter AS the grasshol
d pers ate the country bare and wer
g on. or died. they left their eggs b
d.