226 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



flour in the house. The old housewives did not believe that 

 any other bread than that made from Troy City flour was the 

 thing to entertain great folks with when they came. That 

 Troy City flour had a reputation all over the country. Its 

 sale was enormous. The number of mills in Troy was aston- 

 ishing. It was supposed at the time that the p'osperity of 

 the city of Troy depended entirely upon those flour mills. 

 Then, sir, the wheat that supplied the city of Troy was grown 

 in the counties of Washington, Rensselaer, Albany, Mont- 

 gomery, Schenectady, Columbia, Green, Schoharie, and some 

 other counties around them. That was the region where the 

 principal part of the flour made in the United States at that 

 time was manufactured. But after the introduction of the 

 wheat midge the growth of wheat in those counties, once so 

 celebrated, was utterly and entirely destroyed. In the coun- 

 ties I have enumerated there is not now raised one-tenth part 

 of the wheat necessary to supply the inhabitants of those 

 counties. 



The wheat midge is exceedingly small. I was the third 

 man on the face of the earth, I believe, who ever saw a male 

 wheat midge. It is the most minute insect that I know of. 

 The only way to examine it is to hold a candle near it and 

 allow its shadow to fall ; you can then get some idea of it. 

 That wheat midge was first seen by a German Entomologist ; 

 then, for nearly forty years, it was never seen again. Within 

 a few years. Dr. Fitch found a male wheat midge ; I happened 

 to visit him the day after he found it, and I was the third man 

 who ever saw a male wheat midge. I doubt if there are 

 thirty men who have ever seen a male wheat midge up to 

 this time. But what I was coming at was this, and it is a 

 very curious fact. When the British people heard of this 

 terrible invasion among the wheat crops of this country, an 

 Order in Council was drawn up and passed by the Privy Coun- 

 cil of England, ordaining that no American wheat should, 

 under any circumstances, be imported into any British port. 

 After the Order had been passed, but before it had been pro- 

 mulgated, it was submitted to Mr. Curtis, who stands at the 

 head of the entomologists of Great Britain, and is very well 



