Locusts Have Flocked Here

LOCUSTS HAVE FLOCKED HERE

The Seventeen-Year Variety Settle on Allen Farm

THE WINGED HORDE

Are Creating Much Curiosity and Consternation Among the Farmers in the Vicinity

A swarm of locusts of the 17-year species, which have lately caused so much destruction in the eastern states, arrived in Washtenaw county Wednesday. They made their appearance on the old Allen farm on the Whitmore Lake road about four miles from Ann Arbor and now owned by the Towar Milk company, of Detroit. There is an immense number of them, probably running into the hundreds of thousands.

Since their coming they have created a great deal of curiosity among the farmers of the surrounding country and at the same time consternation, for they are among the most destructive insects known to entomologists. Young trees and plants they destroy by the wholesale.

The locusts which have infested the Allen farm are of the migratory species. Infinitesimally little can be done to check the ravages of the winged class, starvation, the outcome of their work, being probably the only means of extermination. It is shown that with all migratory locusts ,the breeding places, or true homes, are comparatively barren districts (mostly elevated plateaus) hence the progress of civilization and colonization with its concomitant necessity for converting those heretofore barren plains into areas of fertility, may, and probably will, gradually lessen the evil.