Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The assistant state commissioner of agriculture and an agricultural inspector returned from Wilson Creek, north of Moses Lake, where they had been waging a fierce “battle against crickets.”

They said crickets were “moving on a front 10 miles wide” and had already devoured more than 800 acres of crops. “When moving, it looked like the soil was stirring,” one of the men said. “They advance by crawling and by hopping.”

Some of the farmers tried slowing them down by plowing deep furrows perpendicular to the line of advance. But the “main army is not halted by it.”

So they were trying other methods. In some areas, they let loose hogs and turkeys, which “made greedy meals of the pests.” But the hogs and turkeys soon became gorged and were “useless for further duty.” One farmer estimated that all of the poultry and swine in the state would be insufficient to conquer the pests.

Then they tried mixing poison with bran, syrup and orange juice. It worked, but it was too expensive for widespread use on the vast hordes.

Finally, they tried sprinkling the crickets with coal oil and setting them on fire. It worked, to an extent, but it was impractical to set on fire an entire 10-mile line of crickets.

The assistant commissioner was making a report to the governor about the crisis.