HOW OTHER FARMERS SUFFER

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 5, 6 November 1931, Page 3

HOW OTHER FARMERS SUFFER

South Dakota last July was suffering from a piague of grasshoppers as well as drought, and one Sunday a great prayer meeting of 2000 farmers of all faiths, and none was held in the shadow of a cross at Jefferson to pray for protection from grasshoppers and - for moisture for their parched fields, The meeting was led by the local Catholic priest. On the plains, in the air, and on the ground, farmers of the mid-west rallied their forces for a bitter fight against the invading' horde of grasshoppers which was sweeping the section bare of vegetation. They battled individually and in groups along many fronts, and aeroplanes droned through the air spraying poison over fields where the ’hoppers were thickest. Devouring everything that contained vegetable fibre as they marched, the grasshopper horde had laid barren many counties in South Dakota and Nebraska, caused much damage along the borders of Minnesota and lowa, and still were marching on. Bonfires dotted the plains of many counties as farmers raked the dead ’hoppers into piles and burned them.