Our Past Is Present August 23, 2017

August 23, 2017

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            The father of C.H. Manley, the prominent Junction City publisher, was Charles H. Manley, Sr.  He was a farmer who arrived in Geary County from New York in 1870 as a 17 year old youth.  The senior Manley kept an extensive diary of his farming experiences and this diary gives us an account of the grasshopper invasion in 1874 that is interesting. 

            Charles Manley, Sr. recorded that “when the grasshoppers came in August, the drought had already killed most of the corn in the county.  I had roasting ears (or corn) growing on about 3 and a half acres, but only got a couple of sacks full.  The grasshoppers got all the rest.  I had one neighbor who had about 15 acres of early corn, which made 10 to 12 bushels to the acre.  It was dried and hard enough so all the grasshoppers seemed to be able to gnaw only the surface of the corn.  They ate everything that was green.  Even the onions were eaten out of the onion beds, leaving a saucer-like depression.  The grasshoppers ate peaches, leaving the stones sticking on the limbs of the trees. The grasshoppers even ate the bark and girdled the limbs of some small cottonwood trees.  When the invasion of 1874 came, I owned nothing but a $5.00 pair of boots.  The grasshoppers left me nothing else.” 

            This story from Mr. Manley’s diary once again reminds us of the challenges farmers face to provide us with good food.  They deal with insects, the weather or other things unknown to many of us who purchase our food from the farmer’s market or the local grocery store with little thought about where the food comes from and what it took to provide it for us.

            That’s today’s story on “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.