Dublin Core
Title
The Grasshopper Year, Rossville, Kansas
Description
THE GRASSHOPPER YEAR - taken from Rossville Reporter July 2, 1936
Despite the lurid tales which are creeping into news reports of the hordes of grasshoppers sweeping like tornadoes over and through some of the plains states, there are plenty of men and women in this area who must be saying that the present generation hasn’t seen anything yet, that it doesn't know what a real grasshopper invasion is.
Those men and women date back to 1874, soon after the prairie sod was first broken, when living under pioneer conditions was difficult at best. They or their parents, had pushed westward into Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and other states west of the Mississippi. They saw a phenomenon which must have rivaled that historic happening recorded in Exodus, when the "plague of locusts” completely denuded Egypt.
It is interesting to recall what our elders told of the grasshopper invasion of 1874. Thousands of “Preemptors” were depending upon their first crop to see them through. The spring gave great promise and even in July a bountiful harvest was forecast. There was drought, there were hot winds, but there was enough of subsoil moisture to pull the crops through.
Then, in the latter day of July, calamity dropped from the sky. Scanning a brazen horizon for signs of rain, farmers saw instead a strange cloud in the northwest moving like the wind, with the sun glinting from millions of points. It was the grasshopper horde. It swept on and on, but always dropping enough of the hoppers to denude every green thing.
Corn fields melted before it leaving merely the woody stalks.
Trees the settlers had nurtured on a barren plain were left stripped as for winter. Grass disappeared. The hoppers became green from their diet and they fed upon each other. Men, women and children stood helpless with slowly starving livestock about them.
There were several railroads penetrating the plains even then and the East sought to help with shipments of supplies, but the hoppers, with a fine carelessness for life and limb, settled on the rails and supplied a greasy cushion which stopped trains. They got into wells and cisterns, they settled down in dying masses in the open springs. For days their movement dimmed the sun.
Then the hoppers burrowed into the earth and laid their eggs.
No more were they visible. Farmers, new to the area, believed the plague was finished and they returned with new courage to their plows. Then, the following spring, the new brood hatched and while the devastation was no greater, the resources of the settlers were lower, and 1875 just about closed the book for great areas. Then, strangely, the hoppers began another migration and the plague really was ended.
The inherent courage of man repeopled the land, and they can afford to laugh at the present puny grasshopper army —- K. C. Star
Despite the lurid tales which are creeping into news reports of the hordes of grasshoppers sweeping like tornadoes over and through some of the plains states, there are plenty of men and women in this area who must be saying that the present generation hasn’t seen anything yet, that it doesn't know what a real grasshopper invasion is.
Those men and women date back to 1874, soon after the prairie sod was first broken, when living under pioneer conditions was difficult at best. They or their parents, had pushed westward into Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and other states west of the Mississippi. They saw a phenomenon which must have rivaled that historic happening recorded in Exodus, when the "plague of locusts” completely denuded Egypt.
It is interesting to recall what our elders told of the grasshopper invasion of 1874. Thousands of “Preemptors” were depending upon their first crop to see them through. The spring gave great promise and even in July a bountiful harvest was forecast. There was drought, there were hot winds, but there was enough of subsoil moisture to pull the crops through.
Then, in the latter day of July, calamity dropped from the sky. Scanning a brazen horizon for signs of rain, farmers saw instead a strange cloud in the northwest moving like the wind, with the sun glinting from millions of points. It was the grasshopper horde. It swept on and on, but always dropping enough of the hoppers to denude every green thing.
Corn fields melted before it leaving merely the woody stalks.
Trees the settlers had nurtured on a barren plain were left stripped as for winter. Grass disappeared. The hoppers became green from their diet and they fed upon each other. Men, women and children stood helpless with slowly starving livestock about them.
There were several railroads penetrating the plains even then and the East sought to help with shipments of supplies, but the hoppers, with a fine carelessness for life and limb, settled on the rails and supplied a greasy cushion which stopped trains. They got into wells and cisterns, they settled down in dying masses in the open springs. For days their movement dimmed the sun.
Then the hoppers burrowed into the earth and laid their eggs.
No more were they visible. Farmers, new to the area, believed the plague was finished and they returned with new courage to their plows. Then, the following spring, the new brood hatched and while the devastation was no greater, the resources of the settlers were lower, and 1875 just about closed the book for great areas. Then, strangely, the hoppers began another migration and the plague really was ended.
The inherent courage of man repeopled the land, and they can afford to laugh at the present puny grasshopper army —- K. C. Star
Creator
Rossville Reporter, Rossville, Kansas
Possibly a reprint of article in Kansas City Star
Possibly a reprint of article in Kansas City Star
Publisher
Rossville Community Library
Date
July 2, 1936 (article date)
Rights
This work is copyrighted; the copyright holder has granted permission for this item to be used by the Rossville Community Library. This permission does not extend to third parties.
Format
typed manuscript page
Identifier
RCL0472
Item Relations
This item has no relations.