6 NEW YORK STATE MLSEUM 



damage in New York, Ohio and Canada of at least $8o,odd,ooo. The 

 chinch bug, Bliss us leucopterus Say, between 1850 and 1887, was 

 responsible for losses amounting to $350,003,033, while grasshoppers, 

 between 1874 and 1875, destroyed crops valued at $571,000,000. The 

 cotton worm, Alabama a r g i 1 1 a c e a Hiibn., caused an estimated annual 

 loss of $15,000,000 during the 14 years following the Civil War according 

 to Dr Packard, that for 1873 being placed at $25,000,000. These records 

 afford only an appro.ximate idea of the damage caused by insect depreda- 

 tions. Se\'eral authorities ha\e atti-mpte-d to estimate the total loss in the 

 United States due to such causes and have placed the amount at from 

 three hundred to four hundred million dollars annually. This estimate is 

 |)ri)l)al)ly a fair approximation of the amount of damage. 



Dr A. S. Packard has placed on record a statement that every spruce 

 tree west of the Penobscot was killed by insects in 18 18, and that in 1874 

 the forests of spruce and fir in Maine, New Hampshire and New ^'()rk 

 i)egan to be destroyed by the wholesale,' which in large part was due to tiie 

 depredations of bark borers. 



Prof. C. 11. Peck, now state botanist, observed e.xtensive injuries to the 

 spruce forests of the .Ailirondacks in iS;6 by the sjjruce bark beetle, 

 I) e n d r o c t o n u s piceaperda ll<i|)k. The trouble was so serious in 

 some places that in 1883 a correspondent of Xa/ioji slated thai in one large 

 tract in Essex county he was unai)le lo fnid i tree in 20 alive.- The com- 

 paratively recent outbreak of I) e n il ro c l o n u s frontalis Zimm. in 

 1891-92 covered an area of something over 50,000 square miles in West 

 Virginia, Mar\land, Pennsylvania and probably Xew jersey, as estimated 

 by Dr A. D. Il()|)kins, who has made a special sUuK- of this insect. The 

 infested area in West X'irginia alone was eslimaletl 1)\ him at 15,000 square 

 miles. There was in 1897 a serious outbreak of a bark Ijeetle, identified as 

 Dendroctonus piceaperda, in northern New Hampshire anil in 

 adjacent territory in Vermont, Maine antl Canada, as reported by Dr C. M. 

 Weed. 



■ U. S. Ent. Com. 5th Rep'i. i8go. j). 811, 817. 



