As the prophet Joel said, "The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth....

The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness." Not only was every green leaf devoured, but the very bark was peeled from the trees, which stood out white and lifeless, like skeletons.

The fields were stripped to the ground, and the old men of our villages, who had given their lives to cultivating these gardens and vineyards, came out of the synagogues where they had been praying and wailing, and looked on the ruin with dimmed eyes.

Nothing was spared.

The insects, in their fierce hunger, tried to engulf everything in their way.