This destructive insect appeared in vast devastating numbers in '57, east of the Mississippi, and there is but little doubt that the cultivator in the states south and east, at least in parts of those states, must suffer from their ravages. Facts derived from the experience of one who has suffered not a little from their devastations may be of some value.

The writer is little acquainted with the correct scientific name of the grasshopper, or a technical description of it. Some good authorities mention it as a species of locust. If it is really that dreaded insect, and no means can be found to destroy it, inconceivable loss must fall on those sections where it alighted last fall. About the middle of August, 1856, the papers at St. Paul noticed the mischief the grasshoppers were doing around Sauk Rapids, some fifty miles from the falls, up the Mississippi. A short time after that a swarm of them reached the Minnesota. They were described as flying high in the air, and alighting on the ground. Though vegetation was well advanced to maturity, they did considerable mischief to potatoes, buckwheat, corn, etc. During September they laid their eggs in the ground, and it was not until the weather had set in very cold that they were destroyed. It is said they have been very mischievous in the Red River country before they appeared here: but where they originally started, is, for the most part, a matter of conjecture.

Their course, so far, has been nearly a southerly one.

During the warm weather of May, 1857, the grasshoppers began to hatch out in immense numbers, the soil seeming to be fairly alive with them; particularly was this the case in plowed land. No kind of weather affected them; whether the thermometer ranged 60° to 80° in the shade, or there fell cold, heavy rain for several days, or there came heavy frost, it was all the same, the young ones hatched out and commenced their destructive career. It would have been supposed that the extraordinary cold of the preceding winter - at one time an extreme of 43° below zero - the unusual cold and frosty weather of May, the very heavy and cold rains about the first of June, would have destroyed them. During June they committed much injury on the grain crops, but of the gardens and vegetables they soon made clean work. The grasshoppers seemed to have a particular liking to vegetables; where they commenced pretty strong on a garden one day, by the next not a green thing would be left. Not a vegetable escaped, excepting only peas, beans and some of the coarser vines, and these only where they were thickly sown.

In sections further north, where they appeared in larger numbers than here, they cleared off the crops as they came up; but here, until the beginning of July, there was a fair prospect of securing some crops; but then they appeared in such increased numbers, that actually in two or three days they ate off whole acres of wheat in head. They seemed to work in swarms while they were committing so much mischief here. The farms a mile or two east were not injured. In July the grasshoppers got wings, and about the middle of the month they commenced flying southward in vast swarms. During the warm part of the day, looking toward the sun, as far up as one could see, the air was filled with them. By the middle of August they had all disappeared. The only safety for vegetation of any kind seemed to be in early and thick sowing, and of vegetables this may only save the Pea and Bean. It is hard to say where the grasshopper laid its eggs last year, but whoever has been unfortunate enough to be in such sections, the writer can only advise them to get in their crops as early as they can, and to sow and plant heavy.

Minnesota.