obvious and important, the eggs were immobile, unable to evade whatever punishments humans devised. In this regard, the keys were to alter the amount of water and disturb the protective cover of soil.
Females preferred to oviposit in well-drained sandy soil, so the eggs were normally kept dry by virtue of their parents’ having carefully chosen a suitable nursery. Although the locusts’ eggs were well protected from natural assaults, prolonged and repeated flooding could eventually drown the embryos. With irrigation, the farmers could inundate their fields in the fall or, more commonly, in the spring before the eggs hatched. With good luck and timing, an observant settler could even flood the fields just as the tiny nymphs were emerging from the soil.
Likewise, the buried eggs had no defense against an assault by the plow and harrow. The plow was used to turn the soil and bury the eggs deep in the earth so that the nymphs could not wriggle to the surface. Conversely, the harrow raked the eggs to the surface, exposing them to the elements and hungry scavengers. However, as if suspecting such a counterattack on their offspring, locusts often foiled these strategies by destroying the forage and grain prior to laying their eggs and moving on. This lack of feed translated into a severe shortage of draft animals, and finding horses, mules, or oxen to plow or harrow
the infested fields was nearly impossible in many cases. There was one last, spectacularly desperate means of disrupting the soil that harbored the next generation of locusts. A few farmers resorted to dynamiting the egg beds, which surely did far more good to their sense of vengeance than it did harm to the locusts.
Once the nymphs hatched, hand-dug ditches made effective pitfall traps for the little locusts. In this inverted version of trench warfare, the open fields were safe but the trenches were deadly. Trial-and-error revealed the optimal ditch dimensions: eighteen inches wide and two feet deep—too wide for the nymphs to hop across and too deep for them to escape. The depth could be reduced if there was a means of filling the bottom of the trench with water. Conversely, some farmers dug the trenches extra deep so that the trapped insects could be buried once the stench of their decay became overpowering, and the ditch would continue to function. Otherwise, the moldering bodies had to be shoveled out or new trenches had to be dug. In general, the bands of nymphs were simply allowed to wander into the ditches of their own accord, as they seemed to have no hesitancy in tumbling over the edge. Impatient farmers attempted to drive the bands toward the lethal pitfalls using flails, but this was rarely necessary or worth the effort. In at least some cases, the trenches were spectacularly successful. According to the Nebraska Eagle:
Farmers living at Brushy Bend dug a ditch over half a mile long, on the north side of a farm. At the bottom of the trench they made holes about five feet apart, making about four hundred and eighty holes in all. Each of these holes will hold about a bushel, and the ’hoppers traveling south from the sand-ridges will fill them quite full in one day. This would seem incredible, but nevertheless that one ditch is destroying about four hundred and eighty bushels of hoppers per day.
As the swarms continued to plague the settlers, farming practices began to change. The swarms provided some benefits to those people who had the ability to financially absorb the immediate losses. Although most homesteaders relied on hand-to-mouth subsistence, established farmers found that replanting crops with late fall yields
could offset some of their losses. One Missourian optimistically noted that after the swarms departed in July, “Root crops do well, and vegetables of all kinds attain immense proportions, owing to the freedom from weeds, and fertility resulting from the dung and bodies of the dead locusts.” But the locusts caused much broader and
Females preferred to oviposit in well-drained sandy soil, so the eggs were normally kept dry by virtue of their parents’ having carefully chosen a suitable nursery. Although the locusts’ eggs were well protected from natural assaults, prolonged and repeated flooding could eventually drown the embryos. With irrigation, the farmers could inundate their fields in the fall or, more commonly, in the spring before the eggs hatched. With good luck and timing, an observant settler could even flood the fields just as the tiny nymphs were emerging from the soil.
Likewise, the buried eggs had no defense against an assault by the plow and harrow. The plow was used to turn the soil and bury the eggs deep in the earth so that the nymphs could not wriggle to the surface. Conversely, the harrow raked the eggs to the surface, exposing them to the elements and hungry scavengers. However, as if suspecting such a counterattack on their offspring, locusts often foiled these strategies by destroying the forage and grain prior to laying their eggs and moving on. This lack of feed translated into a severe shortage of draft animals, and finding horses, mules, or oxen to plow or harrow
the infested fields was nearly impossible in many cases. There was one last, spectacularly desperate means of disrupting the soil that harbored the next generation of locusts. A few farmers resorted to dynamiting the egg beds, which surely did far more good to their sense of vengeance than it did harm to the locusts.
Once the nymphs hatched, hand-dug ditches made effective pitfall traps for the little locusts. In this inverted version of trench warfare, the open fields were safe but the trenches were deadly. Trial-and-error revealed the optimal ditch dimensions: eighteen inches wide and two feet deep—too wide for the nymphs to hop across and too deep for them to escape. The depth could be reduced if there was a means of filling the bottom of the trench with water. Conversely, some farmers dug the trenches extra deep so that the trapped insects could be buried once the stench of their decay became overpowering, and the ditch would continue to function. Otherwise, the moldering bodies had to be shoveled out or new trenches had to be dug. In general, the bands of nymphs were simply allowed to wander into the ditches of their own accord, as they seemed to have no hesitancy in tumbling over the edge. Impatient farmers attempted to drive the bands toward the lethal pitfalls using flails, but this was rarely necessary or worth the effort. In at least some cases, the trenches were spectacularly successful. According to the Nebraska Eagle:
Farmers living at Brushy Bend dug a ditch over half a mile long, on the north side of a farm. At the bottom of the trench they made holes about five feet apart, making about four hundred and eighty holes in all. Each of these holes will hold about a bushel, and the ’hoppers traveling south from the sand-ridges will fill them quite full in one day. This would seem incredible, but nevertheless that one ditch is destroying about four hundred and eighty bushels of hoppers per day.
As the swarms continued to plague the settlers, farming practices began to change. The swarms provided some benefits to those people who had the ability to financially absorb the immediate losses. Although most homesteaders relied on hand-to-mouth subsistence, established farmers found that replanting crops with late fall yields
could offset some of their losses. One Missourian optimistically noted that after the swarms departed in July, “Root crops do well, and vegetables of all kinds attain immense proportions, owing to the freedom from weeds, and fertility resulting from the dung and bodies of the dead locusts.” But the locusts caused much broader and
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