Water into Gold
I am currently reading Water into Gold by Ernestine Hill, a history of irrigation on the Murray first published in 1937. There is a good description on p149 regarding the locust plague of 1886.
“Just at this time a plague of grasshoppers swept in from the west. There are occasional such visitations in Australia, when the most harmless of earth’s creatures become a menace. Where they came from, and where they go, nobody knows. Winged hordes that darken the sun, driving across the continent like a wind of pestilence, they leave it bare, demolishing every leaf, every blade of young wheat, gone in a day, and desolation in their wake. Even yet science is powerless against that terrible onslaught.”
Will they be coming to Mildura soon?
