Taylor County, Iowa 1881 History: page 381

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN LOCUST

(Caloptenus spretus.)

(Page 381)

….The authentic records of the Rocky Mountain locust date back to 1818 and 1819. In Neill's History of Minnesota it is stated that in those years the locusts "in vast hordes" appeared in Minnesota "eating everything in their course, in some cases the ground being covered three or four inches." While, doubtless, the State of Iowa was invaded simultaneously with Minnesota, the visitation was probably not so general, and possibly entirely confined to the northwestern counties. There is no tradition of a general invasion of the State which dates back further than the year 1833. The authority for a locust invasion in that year is the following, quoted in the United States Entomological Commissioner's report: "In regard to the grasshopper raid of 1833, there was no white settlement here then, but there is a part of a tribe of Indians living near the center of this state and they used to hunt through here, and in some of their visits here in 1866, their chief, Johnny Green, who was a very old man, told the people here that thirty-three years before the grasshoppers came so thick that the grass was all eaten off and there was no grass for their ponies, and the ground looked black, as if there had been a prairie fire. He also said that there had been no more grasshoppers until 1866, when he was speaking. This chief was a very intelligent man, and was about one-half white; but the Indians are very (page 382) liable to exaggerate; I have forgotten the name of the tribe of Indians, but think they were the Winnebagoes or Pottawattamies."

Other locust years in Iowa were 1850, 1856, 1857, 1864-65, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1870-72, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877.

The most destructive year in Taylor county was 1867. The young unfledged locusts made sad ravages in that year upon the growing crops. Again in 1875 was enormous damage done, not by locusts hatched in the county, as in the previous destructive invasion, but by great swarms coming from the south. In this county in that year the damage is reported as fully fifteen per cent.

In the year 1877, J. F. Sanborn, of Fremont county, writes to the commission as follows, and his letter is partially quoted here as giving some brief account of their habits in language all can easily understand:

"May 28, 1877 - I find, by referring to my record of observations, that the grasshoppers came last year August 24, and continued to increase in numbers for some days following. Their coming was too late to do much damage to the crops. They deposited immense quantities of eggs through this section of the country, and the farmers were very apprehensive of the consequences; so that but little improvement in building is going on this year. The quantity of eggs in places, as found by actual count, was over two hundred and fifty in a square inch. Others have estimated them as high as thirty-five bushels per acre. The nice, beautiful weather of last fall hatched out some of the eggs, and I saw some of the little fellows hopping around just before cold weather set in for winter. This fine weather that hatched some, probably partially developed many others which the cold of winter destroyed. The warm days of February and March developed, I think, the largest share of those the warm fall weather left undeveloped, and the freezing nights and cold storms of April destroyed them in immense quantities. They commenced hatching out April 14, and have continued up to this. In some fields protected from sudden changes of weather, as near timber, they are hatched in numbers sufficient to materially injure the crops, and where the fall plowing gave a favorable place to deposit the eggs in the greatest numbers, like that where the estimate was thirty-five bushels per acre, in such places, even if one in a thousand hatched, there would be enough to destroy the crops in that locality. While plowing my corn ground, twelve acres, I did not see one on it. On my timothy grass not any were hatched. I have a blue-grass pasture. Where the eggs were deposited there are some, and they may injure it some, but not enough to materially affect the use as a pasture. They will soon commence traveling or hopping for a change of feed, and may ten injure our corn and grain."

(Page 383)

The farming community of this county was especially fortunate in that it was one of those counties near the limit of the locust migrations. That limit sweeps through the southeastern part of Taylor into Worth county, Missouri, and thence in a southwest direction to the northwest corner of Arkansas. Their habits are, of course, altogether destructive, being vegetable feeders, but especially are they destructive during the younger stages. Nothing green escapes their ravenous maw, and dire have been the effects of their visits in parts of Iowa.

The visitation of the locust in this county, or the State, will not be frequent. Nor can it ever become a permanent resident here. The labors of the entomological commission previously referred to, have developed the following general conclusions; conclusions in which all will at least hope to agree: The comparatively sudden change from the attenuated and dry atmosphere of the elevated plains and plateaus which constitute the permanent region to the more humid and low prairie region of the Mississippi valley proper, is injurious to the species, though its consequences are not manifest with the invading insects, except, perhaps, in limiting their eastward progress. The generation, however, hatched in the low alluvial country is more or less unhealthy, and the insects do not breed here, but quit the country and get back, as far as they are able, to more congenial breeding grounds. If the weather be particularly wet and cold they perish in immense numbers, and there is every reason to believe that even the bulk of those which attain maturity, are intestate, and perish without procreating, because the large majority of those which drop on the return to the Northwest, contain no eggs. In the sub-permanent region, or as we go west or northwest, the species propagate, and becomes localized more and more until we reach the country where it is always found. Nothing is more certain than that the species is not authochthonous (native or indigenous) in Texas, west Arkansas, Indiana Territory, west Missouri, Kansas, western Iowa, Nebraska, nor even Minnesota, and wherever it overruns any of those States; it sooner or later abandons them. We may perhaps find, in addition to the comparatively sudden changes from an alternated and dry, to a more dense and humid atmosphere, another tangible barrier to the insect's permanent multiplication in the more fertile country to the southeast is the lengthened summer season. As with annual plants, so with insects (like this locust) which produce but one generation annually and whose active existence is bounded by the spring and autumn frosts, the duration of active life is proportioned to the length of the growing season. Aside from the causes here (page 384) enumerated by the commissioner, may be mentioned the presence of a great number of invertebrate enemies, in the shape of beetles and mites, both which attack and slay incredible numbers of locusts. During their visitation to Iowa in 1875-6, there were also found within them many larvae of a kind of fly, the egg having been laid in the body of the locust by the adult of the fly indicated. Innumerable thousands were thus found diseased and dying.

The injury to the agricultural interests of this county has been done, and now bids fair to come the dawn of immunity for this scourge. Thousands of dollars have been lost in its agricultural interests, but the experience gained from past disaster will enable the farmer of the future, should it ever become necessary, to successfully battle even greater hosts. May the following unique description never be recorded of this beautiful "garden of Iowa":

"The farmer plows and plants, he cultivates in hope, watching his growing grain in graceful wavelike motion wafted to and fro by the warm summer winds. The green begins to golden; the harvest is at hand. Joy lightens his labor as the fruit of past toil is about to be realized. The day breaks with a smiling sun that sends its ripening rays through laden orchards and promising fields. Kine and stock of every sort are sleek with plenty, and all the earth seems glad. The day grows; suddenly the sun's face is darkened and clouds obscure the sky. The joy of the morn gives way to ominous fear. The day closes, and ravenous locust-swarms have fallen upon the land. The morrow comes, and, ah! what a change it brings! The fertile land of promise and plenty has become a desolate waste, and old Sol, even at his brightest, shines sadly through an atmosphere alive with myriads of flittering insects." - Riley.