264 [Senate 



35,000 souls, and an area of 700 square miles, of which nearly 500 

 are cleared and improved. 



Lest this statement should be deemed extravagant by the reader, I 

 vrill adduce the data on which it is founded. When it is considered 

 that the entire crop of 1832 was almost totally destroyed — that the crop 

 of the previous year was much injured, and that for several of the sub- 

 sequent years the man was deemed fortunate who received but half of 

 a fair yield per acre — many obtaining back but little more than the 

 amount of seed which they committed to the ground. I say, Avhen 

 these facts are duly considered, I think it will be regarded as but a 

 moderate estimate if we set down the total amount of loss during the 

 fourteen past years, as equal to the entire crops of three years, under 

 ordinary circumstances. Had the usual quantity of land been all along 

 sowed with wheat, the loss Vi^ould doubtless have been double that 

 which we here are supposing it to have been. What, then, was the 

 amount of the ordinary wheat crops in this country, formerly 1 No 

 statistics, that I am aware, were then taken, by which this point can be 

 definitely ascertained. But in 1844 — the crop of which year is com- 

 monly supposed to have been about a third or a fourth less than what 

 was required for the consumption of the country — according to the 

 census returns, 75,500 bushels were produced. 



Now, since the county formerly not only supplied its own wants, but 

 transmitted a considerable surplus annually to market, it is probable 

 that the yearly crop previous to the appearance of the wheat-fly, was 

 twice or thrice what it amounted to in 1844, which would be from 150 

 to 200,000 bushels, the value of which for three years, gives us the 

 sum first stated, half a million of dollars. And this estimate, be it 

 observed, only contemplates the grain that has been destroyed, without 

 taking into consideration the detriment that has been indirectly 

 sustained by our farmers in being driven to a cultivation of those 

 coarser grains which have yielded them a much less profit. 



The adjoining counties of Ptensselaer and Saratoga, and the five 

 western counties of Vermont, constituting the district over which this 

 fly first swept and where perhaps its ravages have been most severe, 

 have probably suffered in about an equal degree with Washington 

 county. Together they embrace an area about six times greater than 

 that of Washington county. The whole of this district is therefore 

 about equal in extent to the State of Connecticut, and the amount of 



