Locust (11 page)

In addition to planting alternative crops, many farmers turned to animal production. Poultry could exploit the locusts to some degree, but the greater shift was to dairy and beef. Although pastures were often damaged by the locusts, these lands were almost always left in better shape than the crops. In particular, native grasses and rangelands seemed to fare relatively well or at least to recover rather quickly after a swarm departed. Farming the semiarid lands west of the 100th meridian was a marginal venture without the locusts, and these insects were the nail in the coffin for many homesteaders. Ranching, however, relied on the native grasslands. And cattle production became the mainstay of western agriculture. The prairies could be, and frequently were, overgrazed by livestock, but they were often mercifully passed over by the swarms migrating to more fruitful and verdant lands.

This approach to battling the locust really amounted to conflict avoidance, rather than direct confrontation. As with flooding, plowing, harrowing, and ditching, diversification required no technological sophistication and little capital investment. All of these practices had been available to farmers for centuries. But wasn’t America the land of innovation and industry? Where were the chemical and biological weapons that dominate the modern agricultural battlefield?

Insecticide chemistry was in its infancy during the Rocky Mountain locust’s heyday. Some of the machines invented to assault the insects made use of poisons, such as kerosene, coal tar, and sulfur fumes, but these were incidental to the function of the machine. Any of these lethal substances could be, and were, replaced with devices to crush, bag, or incinerate the locusts. However, various and assorted chemicals were directly applied to the locusts or the plants they were consuming. Salt, saltpeter (potassium nitrate), naphthalene (the active ingredient in mothballs), kerosene, and cresylic acid soap (derived from coal tar) provided little control, and some of these chemicals probably killed more crops than locusts. Plant extracts, such as pyrethrum powder and quassia water, worked no better, but at least these remedies were safer for people and plants. Milo Andrus, a creative but apparently unorthodox Mormon farmer, suggested sprinkling whisky on locust-infested plants. Perhaps this was Milo’s way of disposing of a forbidden liquid, but the whisky would have been more effective in drowning his sorrows than in intoxicating locusts.

The most effective insecticides of the day were arsenical compounds—lead and calcium arsenate. These poisons were usually mixed with bran to create an oatmeal-like paste that was applied to the bases of trees or scattered through an infested field. Although there were no reported cases of human poisonings, dead birds were often seen in the treated fields. Rabbits and hares seemed to fare the worst of all creatures. And whereas large numbers of vertebrates were killed by the deadly bait, only a small proportion of the pests were poisoned.

The greatest limitation to waging effective chemical warfare against the locusts was operational. There was simply no way to effectively disperse the insecticides on the necessary spatial scale. Shoveling globs of poisoned mash was a terribly inadequate means of application. Chemical control was logistically impossible without insecticides formulated as liquids or dusts, equipment to deliver the poison efficiently, and vehicles to efficiently move the sprayers through the fields.

An entomologist of the time concluded, “There is yet room here for experiment, though, considering that in all historical times, the resources of many nations have been employed against Locusts without furnishing anything that will protect plants on a large scale—little hope can be entertained of discovering such a substance,” and he was right for nearly seventy years. The widespread use of synthetic organic insecticides came with the popularization of DDT in the 1940s, after which a flood of pesticides poured into American agriculture. The 1960s might have risked becoming the era of silent springs, but the 1860s seethed with the whirling cacophony of locust swarms.

 

The settlers were well aware that natural enemies often thinned the ranks of the locusts. The farmers saw an array of predators and parasites consuming their foe, most often witnessing legions of scarlet mites and swarms of buzzing flies emerging from the fallen locusts. In some cases, they drew erroneous but understandable conclusions regarding their most potent allies. In 1878 and 1879, astute Mormon farmers noticed that the locusts were dying in a most unusual and dramatic manner: “Brother John Dayes, of the 20th Ward, called this morning with a number of pests that had clustered together on the sprig of a currant bush, and were holding each other with a death grip. They were mere shells, the whole internal portion of their bodies having been gnawed away by an insect, which bores its way through the ironclad, outer covering and never leaves its prey until death ensues.”

They had observed a fungal epidemic, not the work of an insect parasite. This malady is now known as summit disease, so named for the propensity of the locusts or grasshoppers to climb to the top of vegetation in the terminal stage of infection. But our understanding of
microbial pathogens in humans, let alone insects, had barely dawned in the 1870s. The germ theory of disease had been advanced less than a decade earlier by Louis Pasteur, and Robert Koch’s first proof of bacteria causing disease (anthrax) did not come until 1876. So it is not surprising that the people of the frontier waged biological warfare against locusts using livestock rather than microbes.

The settlers found that chickens and turkeys could be used to protect gardens from some of the depredations of the locusts, although a full-fledged swarm quickly overwhelmed the domestic fowl. Moreover, tainted meat and lethally overstuffed birds were potential costs of turning the poultry loose on the locusts. After the swarms had moved on, cattle were herded into fields to stomp the buried eggs of the locusts. This pummeling proved quite effective if the soil was moist or friable, but only so much land could be trampled. Even pigs were pressed into service, as they proved to be nearly as enthusiastic about locust eggs as they are about truffles. The hogs happily rooted through the soil to scavenge the delectable egg pods. Again, however, there were not enough pigs in the nation to turn the tide of locusts.

The most potent allies of the farmers were the native birds, many of which reportedly consumed vast numbers of locusts. Indeed, birds were hailed as such effective forces in the battle against the locusts that several states revised game statutes and passed legislation to protect these locust predators. Such laws were necessary in light of the enormous numbers of birds that were being hunted. Although precise numbers are difficult to determine on a national or regional basis, local statistics provide a powerful impression. The records from Bohannon Brothers, a butchering firm in Nebraska, show that the ten meat packers in Lincoln shipped out 50,000 prairie chickens and quail in 1874 and 1875. In eastern Nebraska, Johnson County estimated that 10,000 prairie chickens were exported each year, and neighboring Pawnee County reported twice as many of these birds shipped in 1874. The September 8, 1865, edition of the
Omaha Republican
reported, “On the 6th Captain Hoagland’s party bagged 422 prairie-chickens, 4 quails, 6 hawks, 1 duck, 4 snipe, and 1 rabbit; total, 462. Captain Kennedy’s party bagged 287 prairie-chickens, 2 quails, 8 hawks, 15 ducks, 6 snipe, and one rabbit; total 353. Excluding
the two rabbits, the total number for one day by these two parties was 813 birds.”

Across thirty counties in Nebraska, the average number of prairie chickens and quail destroyed each year was placed at nearly half a million. By one estimate, these avian allies would have consumed 486 trillion insects—had the birds been allowed to live. And, of course, the number would be truly astronomical if extrapolated across the western states. But there was good reason that the calculations came out of Nebraska, for this state produced one of the most audacious characters in the story of the Rocky Mountain locust.

 

Professor Samuel Aughey, Jr., provided the reports that transformed our ecological and legal perspectives concerning the role of birds in suppressing insect outbreaks—and in stemming the flood of locusts across the West. His data were revolutionary, his numbers were startling, and his extrapolations were courageous. Although nobody doubted Aughey’s powers of persuasion, his scientific integrity was another matter. This first director of the University of Nebraska State Museum was hailed as a scientific pioneer by some and disparaged as a charlatan by others. Aughey’s story reveals a great deal about the lives and times of nineteenth-century scientists in America—revelations that reverberate throughout the tale of the Rocky Mountain locust.

Born in 1832, Aughey grew up in simple conditions in rural Pennsylvania. Through childhood collecting of fossils and Indian artifacts, he became fascinated with natural history. After teaching school for a time, Aughey entered Pennsylvania College, graduating in 1856. Following an itinerant period of teaching and surveying, he entered the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg and was ordained in 1858. He married Elizabeth Catherine Welty that year and shortly thereafter accepted a call to serve a church in Lionville, Pennsylvania. Much to his delight, the position allowed him to maintain his dual interests in science and theology. These two passions might have been sustainable, but Aughey was a man of many, sometimes conflicting, desires, which variously proved to be his undoing throughout life.

In this case, he desired to be both a rural minister and a social activist. Aughey apparently adored the public limelight—which was not a quality that sat well with a small Lutheran community. His outspoken abolitionist views put him at odds with members of his congregation, and he resigned after four tumultuous years. He served a few other Pennsylvania churches and then landed a position as an army chaplain. According to the Aughey family story, he was a secret agent for Abraham Lincoln, although there appears to be no substantiating historical evidence of his adventurous role in the Union forces. Indeed, Aughey seemed remarkably adept at inflating his accomplishments. His daughter recounted that her father had been a perilous adventurer and the first explorer of the Niobrara River and the Dakota Badlands—neither claim appears to have any basis in fact.

In 1864, he was called to a congregation in Dakota City, Nebraska, but Aughey could not settle into his pastoral role. Compelled by his childhood love of natural history, he left the ministry to devote himself to science, including the study of evolution. The family history suggests that he worked for the Smithsonian, although once again there are no corroborating records. Whether by his self-aggrandizement or his serendipitous combination of credentials, Aughey managed to convince the University of Nebraska to hire him as a professor of natural science. Religious orthodoxy was the primary requirement of faculty at the two-year-old university. Aughey could legitimately point to his theological training, his orthodoxy being rather dubitable in light of his liberal politics and advocacy of Darwinism. But in 1871, there could not have been an abundance of ordained ministers with aptitude in the natural sciences on the Nebraska frontier.

University records clearly show that Aughey had a heavy workload of teaching biology, botany, zoology, chemistry, geology, and German. What is less evident is whether Aughey actually taught in proportion to this demanding schedule. Students complained that he missed classes, and this reported absenteeism coincides with other claims that he was in his laboratory from early morning to late night. Evidently, doing science was far more interesting to Aughey than teaching about it. He performed chemical analyses on a remarkably varied but seemingly
haphazard assortment of substances, including soil, sugar beets, and patent medicines. The professor even performed autopsies, apparently undeterred by a lack of formal medical training.

Aughey was eventually named the first curator of the Nebraska State Museum, a position from which he was able to recapture the spotlight. In this capacity he could effectively advance the cause of avian conservation as vital to suppressing outbreaks of the Rocky Mountain locust. Much of what scientists and legislators came to believe about the role of birds as keystone predators of locusts was the result of Aughey’s work and writing. His passion for this subject led him to make—or at least to report—observations on the locust-eating habits of 250 species of birds, including the dissection of stomach contents from more than 600 individuals. Aughey reported that virtually all of these birds ate locusts, including various finches and grosbeaks, which are normally considered seed-eating. Such records are far-fetched but conceivable. However, the integrity of Aughey’s science was clearly compromised by his report of finding four locusts in the stomach of a ruby-throated hummingbird, a creature that is anatomically and behaviorally incapable of such feeding.

Nevertheless, Aughey’s authoritative presentation of observations and fastidious tabulation of data persuaded state and federal officials of the veracity of his work. He organized his report using a faulty taxonomic framework, rich in supercilious terms but lacking in scientific rigor. The credibility of his fifty-page discourse that was sent to and printed by the U.S. Department of the Interior might well have been called into question when the nomenclature of the birds had to be revised by an expert in Washington, D.C. But the federal commissioners presumably believed that Aughey’s muddled taxonomy did not negate his ecology. If doing the right thing for the wrong reason is cause for admiration, then Aughey can be heartily commended for instigating legal protection for birds across the West. Birds surely were of some benefit during locust outbreaks, but their actual efficacy was a mere fraction of what Aughey’s imaginative qualitative and quantitative estimates suggested.

One might forgive Aughey’s passion for birds as the well-meaning efforts of a devoted conservationist. But, alas, his creativity in the
realm of science was not limited to the ecology of birds and locusts. As befits academic understatement, a later museum director described Aughey’s record keeping as being “of little use.” Aughey’s botanical catalog for Nebraska apparently bordered on scientific fraud, being based on work from other authors rather than actual specimens from his museum. The university’s historian diplomatically described him as “a loveable personality [but] the enormous burden laid upon his shoulders by the University did not tend to foster scientific precision.” Aughey was unquestionably devoted to service and had a strong public following even though his replies to various queries were “based upon a minimal amount of scientific investigation.” The public wanted timely and authoritative answers—accuracy was less important.