A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 220, 17 September 1887, Page 4

A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS.

A recent Chicago special from Perhamy Minnesota, &ays : The prairie is alive with locusts. Trees, walls, and buildings are covered with them. They are crushed under foot on the sidewalks and in the streets. In the fields they rise in a cloud about you and beat against your face in their clumsy flight. High in air every clear day, when the wind is strong, the whito wings of millions of them can be seen going in a black cloud as the wind carries then?. The crops at Pevham are a dead loss. Ten thousand acres can already bo counted as destroyed. Vegetation in places is devoured to the root.° Elsewhere the leaf is stripped off, and the kernel bared, leaving the bare stalk and husk withering in the sun. Everything is eaten except the wild grassand foliage. In some places the currant bushe-3 and young trees are stripped of the bark and foliage. Numerous as these insects are, this is evidently only the beginning of their ravages. Their increase is something beyond computation. It is said that after hatching in the spring they keep together in swarms, and at that time maybe caught on tarred sheets and cremated. It is the general impression that this might have been done a year ago with effect, but after they begin to fly there seems to be no protection or defence against them.

GARLICK & CRANWELL are selling Furniture and Carpets very cheap ; Iron Bedsteads and Spring Mattresses at greatly reduced prices. Bedding of all kinds ready for dolivery. Oil Cloths from Is square yard, and Linoleum from 2s 3d. Blankets, Sheets, Quilts, Curtains, and all furnishing goods — splendid value. Wire Wove Mattresses much cheaper than they used to be. A strong Iron Bedstead and Wire Wove Mattress for 55s cash. Single Iron Bedstead and Wire Wove Mattress for 38s, cash price. Our goods are carefully packed, every attention paid to prevent damage by transit. Buy all your household goods from G.vrlick and CranwelL, Cabinetmakers, Queen-street, Auckland. Mr and Mrs Geo. Mailer, of the Bristol Orphanages, are on their way to Australia and New Zealand. A pearl weighing 62 grains, of the valus of £800, has been found on the .Ninetymile Beach, Wostwn Australia, by Georgo Rome.