The Rocky Mountain Locust in Texas

Abstract

Female locusts depositing eggs. Illustration from "The Rocky Mountain locust, or grasshopper ofthe West," in Report ofthe CommissionerofAgriculturefortheyear i8yy (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1877), plate 1, figure 1 (after Riley). The Rocky Mountain Locust in Texas By Stanley D. Casto* Listen all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your day or in the days ofyour forefathers? (Joel 1:2) The first Texans to experience the ravages of the Rocky Mountain locust (Melanoplus spretus) must certainly have recalled the question asked by the prophetJoel during the locust plague in ancient Israel. Has anything like this ever happened in your day or in the days of your forefathers ? From where did this pestiferous insect come? Could its sudden appearance in such enormous numbers be rationally explained or was it sent, as suggested byJoel, as a reminder that the day of the Lord was near? And of immediate concern, how might the gardens, orchards, and crops be protected from this insatiable destroyer of plant life? These questions would eventually be answered but not before the citizens of Texas had endured a number of devastating visitations. The Rocky Mountain locust was a migratory grasshopper, now presumed extinct, that lived in the valleys ofthe Rocky Mountains ofthe western United States and southern Canada. Large swarms periodically left the place of their nativity and migrated onto the Great Plains of the United States and southern Canada. Although swarming and migration undoubtedly occurred for hundreds ofyears, it was not until the early 1 800s that these phenomena were first noted in the historical literature. The magnitude of the swarms and the damage they caused peaked during the 1 870s. The migrations then diminished over the next two decades, and by the turn of the century had * StanleyD. Casto is currentlyWells Research Professor, Department ofBiology, University ofMary Hardin-Baylor, Belton,Texas. He was formerly professorand chairman ofdie department ofbiology at the University ofMary Hardin-Baylor and retired from full-tíme teaching in 2000. He would like to thank Prof. Horace Burke for his willingness to share his knowledge ofthe history ofentomology in Texas, as well as for his encouragement, guidance, and editorial suggestions. Appreciation is also extended toJeffrey Lockwood for his review and helpful comments on an early draft of diis paper. The newspapers cited herein are found in the collections at the Center forAmerican History at the University ofTexas at Austin, the Texas State Archives, and the Texas State Library. This study was supported by a grant from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Vol. CXI, No. 2 Southwestern Historical Quarterly October, 2007 1 84Southwestern Historical QuarterlyOctober ceased. So catastrophic was the damage during the 1 870s that the federal governmentcreated aspecial entomological commission to study the pest and devise methods for its control. The damage caused by the Rocky Mountain locust in Texas was less severe than that which occurred in regions farther north.1 Thesudden and unpredictable occurrence ofthe locustswas, however, asource ofapprehension and the subject ofspeculation in die news media of the time. Scientific expertise and governmental assistance were nonexistent, and farmers were forced to devise their own strategies for dealing with the pest. This paper chronicles the invasions of the Rocky Mountain locust, its effect on agriculture, and the struggles ofTexans compelled to deal with this once serious but now apparently extinct insect pest. The swarms of locusts that invaded Texas usually arrived from the north duringOctober orearlyNovember, and overthe nextseveral weeks deposited enormous numbers ofeggs in the soil before dying. Eggs laid in the fall hatched fromJanuary through March ofthe followingyear. The winglessjuvenileswere at first sedentary but later congregated into massive schools or armies that migrated over the countryside destroying all vegetation in their path. When mature and able to fly, the locusts gathered into large swarms and departed, usually flying in a northwesterly direction as they passed overhead. The first visitation of the Rocky Mountain locust to Texas is believed to have occurred in 1845. This conclusion is based on the sources consulted during the early 1870s by C. V. Riley while he was serving as the state entomologist ofMissouri.2 Riley's informants were presumably eyewitnesses to the events of 1845...