A QUAINT DESCRIPTION OF THE GRASSHOPPERS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 226, 12 January 1877, Page 2

A QUAINT DESCRIPTION OF THE GRASSHOPPERS.

The following original and characteristic account of the Kansas grasshopper plague is taken from a private letter to an American gentleman : "Saline County, Kansas, "Septembers, 1876. "My Dear Father,—3STo man can successfully'.fight against nature. The contest is unequal—nature caring no more for man than for a grasshopper. Ah, the 'hopper.' To-day I lost sixty acres of wheat, eaten into the ground in less than an hour. I thought I had seen locusts .two years ago, but I was mistaken. At about ten o'clock this morning I noticed a heavy smoke rising in the west. I said to

myself/ ( THat is a strange-looking smoke. What causes it V I sat on my wheat drill and watched it. Rapidly it arose—smoke rising to the south, to the north, to the north-east. In a few minutes the column of smoke extended from the south around by the west to the north-west —to the extreme limit of vision. While I was say- ! ing to myself, ' Yes, I understand you now,' my heart'slowly sank. Unhitching my team, I put my full wheat sacks in the waggon, hitched to it, drove to the granary, unloaded, drove to the house, got my gun, and went prairie-ehiokeii shooting. My " wife looked at me in mild surprise. Quitting work on a beautiful day to go shooting was- a queer thing she thought. I did not have the heart to tell her that -- in less than four hours her nice garden would be cleaned out, and that all our wheat would be gone. Soon the low hum, as of a distant threshing machine filled the air—the advance of the locusts. Louder, louder, even louder the hum, till in a roar the countless billions of devourers were on us, and around us. The air was still' with them. I could look at the sun without blinking. They settled constantly. The earth was covered with them, but not one in a thousand stopped. To the cast they went in a vast cloud. A west wind, a gale blew them. For six hours they->hV.v, a solid cloud ; and tonight there is not a wheat plant left in any of the counties about here. I sat on a hill and watched them, and smiled as I saw some hundreds tackle a sun-flower ; and laughed as I saw that sun-flower vanish. How thick they were! How harmless they looked ; but, great Jove, the;/ ate ! Ah ! what appetites they have. _ It would make a dyspeptic turn green with envy to seethe way they fasten to anything and every thing edible. The characteristic of a grasshopper's appetite is that all ho cats runs to appetite. Sixty acres of my wheat was up. Now it is down—the gullets of the locusts. I suppose they will take the residue as it comes through the ground. Well, I sliali Lave to rosood, that is all. But the loss of seed and labor is pretty sore on mo this day. I have joy in saving T. nave cigiicy acres or corn tuat \n Wi their teeth somewhat. It is as haruSaS corn can be. I walked down this afternoon to see how they were making out with it. They had the stalks all stripped of leaves, and were sawing at the corn. But I saw it was no go. Their teeth slipped over the bright yellow surface. I have gone to haying again, and will hay until the locusts leave. I shall keep three ploughs running, and will reseed as soon as possible. Our garden is perfectly cleared ; beans, cabbages, tomatoes, melons—everything utterly gone. The vines to the potatoes are gone, and I am expecting a boss-hopper up here at any minute to request the loan of a spade to dig up my potatoes, with. I shall refuse his request with scorn.