No. 105.] 263 



mill, will frequently demonstrate that it was present in much greater 

 abundance than was surmised. These facts plainly show, that this 

 insect might lurk a long time in our country wholly unobserved. 



Mr. Jewett says the wheat-fly first appeared in western Vermont in 

 the year 1820, (JVezo Eng. Farmer^ vol. xix. p. 301.) It was not, 

 however, till the years 1828 and 1829 that it became so numerous as 

 to attract the attention of community ; the same years, be it observed, 

 when its ravages were so annoying in Scotland. It was in the north- 

 ern part of Vermont, bordering upon the line of Lower Canada, where 

 it became so excessively multiplied at this time ; and from that, as a 

 central point, it seems to have extended in nearly all directions. In 

 this vicinity, one hundred and twenty-five or fifty miles south of the 

 locality above indicated, it was certainly observed in 1830 ; and in 

 1832 the wheat crops were so completely destroyed by it, as 

 to lead to a general abandonment of the cultivation of this grain. 

 This was the year in which the malignant cholera swept over our 

 land, and it was a common remark, that what the pestilence spared 

 famine bade fair to destroy. Having spread east over Vermont and 

 New-Hampshire, it in 1834 appeared in the State of Maine, and con- 

 tinued to advance in that direction, it is said, at the rate of twenty or 

 thirty miles a year. Westward its progress would seem to have been 

 less rapid, and along the Mohawk river by no means so generally 

 destructive. It is not till within a year or two past, that it has ap- 

 peared in the Black river country east of Lake Ontario, as I am in- 

 formed by an intelligent gentleman resident there ; nor until the pre- 

 sent season that it has been so injurious as to induce in some instan- 

 ces a premature mowing of the crop, and preserving it for hay. Ru- 

 mor states that farther west, in the wheat-noted Genesee country, 

 it has been detected for the first time the present year. 



The amount of injury inflicted by this insect will be more distinctly 

 and vividly realized, if we can arrive at some approximation to the 

 sums of money that have been lost to certain districts in consequence 

 of its presence. The Maine Farmer, vol. xiv. No. 2, states that "a 

 million of dollars, nay, more money, would not pay the damage it has 

 done to the state of Maine, alone." Half of that sum, it is probable, 

 would not repay the loss which has been sustained merely In Washing- 

 ton county, N. Y. — a county embracing (the untilled mountain district 

 bordering upon Lake George being deducted,) a population of about 



