288 Wiscoxsix State Horticultural Society. 



ginia that, with its continued increase in 1840, the total destruc- 

 tion of their crops appeared inevitable. The prospect was so 

 alarming that Sidney Weller, of Brinkley ville, Halifax county, 

 Xorth Carolina, and others in his neighborhood, united in the 

 spring of 1840 in pledging a handsome sum as a prize for some 

 feasible method to arrest the career of this depredator. But at 

 this juncture providence interfered to accomplish what no human 

 agency could have effected. Instead of being dry, like the two 

 or three preceding years, the summer of 1840 proved to be of an 

 opposite character, and the ravages of this insect were at once sup- 

 pressed. 



"It was about this period that the chinch-bug began to be no- 

 ticed along the Upper Mississippi and through the northern parts 

 of Illinois. It made its appearance there simultaneously with the 

 establishment of the Mormons at ISTauvoo (1840-1844), and many 

 ignorant people firmly believed they were introduced there by 

 these strange religionists, and 'Mormon lice' became the name 

 by which they were currently designated through that district." 



The first notice of their appearance in Wisconsin was given by 

 David Williams, of Geneva, in 1854 and 1855. The first notice 

 made of them in Illinois was in 1840, in the northwestern part of the 

 state, near the Mississippi. In 1847 they were seen in Iowa, and in 

 Indiana in 1848. In 1850 they were very abundant in many parts 

 of the northwest. Mr. Walsh estimates the damage they caused that 

 season in the state of Illinois alone at $4,000,000. In 1864 they ap- 

 peared in much larger numbers and proved far more destructive. 

 The loss incurred throughout the country is figured by Dr. Shimer 

 and others at $100,000,000. The following spring they appeared 

 again in great numbers and the complete annihilation of the crops 

 was expected, but the season proved to be a wet one and the bugs 

 soon disappeared. Again in 1871 they spread over the whole 

 country. Dr. La Baron, at that time State Entomologist of Illi- 

 nois, places the damage they occasioned in Illinois at $10,600,000, 

 and at $30,000,000 in the northwest. But the year 1874 was per- 

 haps the season when the greatest amount of damage was done by 

 them. The losses even exceeded those of the year 1864. Prof. 

 Riley places the losses of that year, in Missouri, at $19,000,000, 



