438 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



than the seed sown. Most of the stalks were found to have a 

 number of small worms within them, near to the second joint, 

 and had become hardened in the part attacked, from the in- 

 terruption of the circulation of the sap. During several years 

 previous to this date, the barley crops, in various parts of 

 Essex and Middlesex counties, were more or less injured in 

 the same way; and, in some places, the cultivation of this 

 grain was given up in consequence thereof. It was supposed 

 that the insects, producing this disease, were imported from 

 Bremen, or some other port in the north of Europe, in some 

 barley that was sown in the vicinity of Newbury, three or 

 four years before 1829.* The worms or maggots were found, 

 by John M. Gourgas, Esq., of Weston, Massachusetts, to be 

 transformed to small flies, "about the make and size of a 

 small black ant, with wings," which were thought, by some 

 persons, to be the same as the Hessian flies. In the summer 

 of 1831, myriads of these flies were found alive in straw beds 

 in Gloucester; the straw having been taken from the fields 

 the year before. An opinion at that time prevailed, that the 

 troublesome humors, wherewith many persons were then 

 afflicted, were occasioned by the bites of these flies ; and it is 

 stated that the straw beds in Lexington, being found to be 

 infested with the same insects, were generally burnt.f Mi'. 

 Gourgas observes, J that when the barley is about eight or ten 

 inches high, the effects of the disease in it begin to be visible 

 by a sudden check in the growth of the plants, and the yellow 

 color of their lower leaves. If the butts of the straw are now 

 examined, they will be found to be irregularly swollen, and 

 discolored, between the second and third joints, and, instead 

 of being hollow, are rendered solid, hard, and brittle, so that 

 the stem above the diseased part is impoverished, and seldom 

 produces any grain. Suckers, however, shoot out below, and 

 afterwards yield a partial crop, seldom exceeding one half the 

 usual quantity of grain. Dr. Andrew Nichols, of Dan vers, 



* "New England Farmer," Vol. VIIL, p. 217. 

 t "New England Farmer," Vol. X., p. 11. 

 X "New England Farmer," Vol. VIII., p. 299. 



