Grasshoppers

The cartoon is grasshopper that has been mangled from all of the ruckus and the backround depicts the dead, eaten crops and trees. I found this grasshopper plague very interesting and decided to look further into it.
The bugs that everyone were calling grasshoppers were actually Rocky Mountain locusts that descended on the prairies from the Dakota’s to Texas. In late July of 1874 millions of these locusts came without warning to Kansas crops and began their destruction. There were so many locusts in swarms so huge that they blocked out the sun and sounded like a loud rainstorm. The swarms were so big that when they landed, the locusts would almost completely demolish the entire crop.
The locusts would even eat things like the wool from live sheep, clothing off peoples backs, paper, tree bark and even wooden tool handles! The citizens referred to them as “hoppers” and reported them to be so deep on the ground that the locomotives couldn’t get traction because the locusts made the rail too slippery. The areas that were hit the worst were the ones that were least prepared like Kansas. To deal with the hoppers, settlers would rake them into piles and then burn them, but this didn’t solve the problem at all. Some of the people built things they called hopper dozers or grasshopper harvesters to fight any further swarms of them.

Source: http://www.kshs.org/portraits/grasshopper_plague.htm


THE GRASSHOPPER PLAGUE
Pioneer George Monlux relates how that in grasshopper days, in Lyon County, the pests were so thick that tall slim forest trees, in two hours’ time were loaded so with them that their branches touched the earth, not a leaf would be left on the thrifty willow hedges. After stripping the gardens clean they left on an early morning breeze for the north. This was in 1873, in June, and one month later, to a day, they returned from their northern journey. Small grain was nearly ripe and they literally swarmed in the grain fields, but left the prairies alone, so grass was good and hay plenty. They are the wheat stems off below the head and cut the branches of oats until the grain fell earthward. Mr. Monlux began to cut a thirty-acre field and before he had worked two hours, unhitched, for they had finished his harvesting for him! They were so thick that they crawled down the farmers’ backs and up their pantaloon legs and the bite was almost like the sting of a bee. When they left it was all at once and they were so numerous that the noonday sun was darkened and when they lighted in Cherokee County the track of the Illinois Central Railway was buried by them and a freight train was stopped by reason of the wheels slipping on the greasy rails. They left their eggs on every bare spot of ground and the following spring would be hatched out by the first warm sun. Plowing did not seem to hinder their maturing.
Strange to say, they even found their way into houses and if allowed to be almost bedding and clothes, they would eat and finally ruin the fabrics. They girdled forest trees, ate harness, got into open wells and pumps, so no water could be drawn or used until removed. Farmers had to tie strings about the lower ends of their pantaloon legs and wear handkerchiefs about the necks. In cases teamsters found it impossible to drive horse and ox teams against them, in their flight. But very little could be done to save crops—strong men stood sullen and powerless and watched the devouring of fine crops, upon which they had depended for a living. Women shed bitter tears at the side of their cherished garden plots, from which they had expected a fall and winter living. They thought of their dear children and of the long, cold winter months. Too much credit cannot be given to those brave heroes and heroines who, year after year, held down their claims during these “plague” years.

Do We Still have Grasshopper Plagues?


Some grasshopper plagues still exist in Africa. These plagues are caused by desert locusts. The effects of these locusts are much like that of the Rocky Mountain Locust in the United States in 1880's. They bring total destruction to an area. It is not likely that a grasshopper plague could happen here in the US. No Rocky Mountain Locust specimens have been found in more than fifty years and it appears certain that this species that caused so much destruction is extinct. No one really knows why these insects became extinct. Some theorize that it was because of plowing the land by humans or even climatic conditions. But no one knows for certain what happened to the Rocky Mountain Locust.