84 PRIZE ESSAY : 



is a formidable enemy, that has the power to take such an 

 amount of money from the pockets of our citizens in a single 

 year."(i) 



As every fact connected with the midge is of importance, the 

 following caution from the "Genesee Farmer" is appended : 



" Weevil. — Caution to Farmers. — The Hon. E. Blackman, of 

 Newark, N. Y., exhibited to the writer samples of Timothy seed 

 obtained by him at Buffalo, which was literally alive with weevils. 

 The seed was understood to be from Ohio ; and most of the seed 

 from many parts of that State, having been obtained from grass 

 in the wheat crop, the weevil falls into their timothy seed and 

 thus is sown broadcast over the land. As the insect lives through 

 winter, or in some other way appears in the same locality every 

 season, it may be possible that the sowing of this seed containing 

 them may hasten the general prevalence of that dread scourge 

 throughout the entire wheat-growing section of our State. 

 Ought not farmers to be on their guard against thus distributing 

 destruction to their crops of wheat ?" 



1855. 



Very destructive in the counties of Northumberland and Dur- 

 ham, C. W. 



In Lower Canada, wheat badly damaged by fly in Grand Bay, 

 Saguenay. 



Not generally prevalent in the United States. This is one of 

 the peculiarities of insect life before referred to, in paragraphs 

 24, 159. Being most abundant and destructive generally in 

 1854, and in certain localities absolutely ruinous, the succeeding 

 year finds it dwindling away into an insignificant and almost for- 

 gotten pest ; yet numberless examples show how little the causes 

 which govern its increase are understood, and how immensely 



(1) Asa Fitch, M. D., " Rural New Yorker," 1856. 



