FIKST ANNUAL REPOET OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



tioas to arrest them. There is i 



Trobably not a single crop cultivated 

 which the infesting insects do not 

 diminish by at least one-tenth — an 

 amount of injury which would hardly 

 be noticed. They often injure crops 

 to the extent of one-fourth or one- 

 half, and occasionally entirely destroy 

 them, as during the ravages of 

 the wheat-midge — i)//)/05M tritici 

 (Kirby) in this State, in 1854-1857, 

 when entire fields were left unharves- 

 ted.* One of our ex-Governors, in his 

 agricultural addresses, has frequently 

 urged that insect depredations upon 

 crops of one-fourth or one-half their 

 value should be regarded as a direct 

 tax of twenty-five per cent or fifty 

 per cent levied upon their full value, 

 and collected, perhaps, year after year, 

 without a show of resistance; but 

 Avhich each farmer could, and there- 

 fore should, resist, and thereby relieve 

 himself from at least a portion of the 

 burden. 



Among the estimates made of these 

 losses occurring throughout the Uni- 

 ted States are the following: 



The loss to the wheat crop in tlie 

 State of New York, in the year 1854 

 from the Avheat-midge, was estimated, 

 from carefully collected data, by the 

 Secretary of the State Agricultural 

 Society, at above fifteen millions of 



Fig. 2.— The Wheat-Midge (after Fitch): f/o?Zar5.f The amount WOuld be a 

 «, male midii-e; 6, female do. ; a', its natural ,■,--,■, •» ,• t j x ai 



size; c, Winer 'much euiarged; d, antennai third larger if estimated at the price 

 joints of mule; e, ditto, ojf female ; /, ovi- ^ ^yhich wheat afterward arose that 



positor, with its two sliding-tubes and 



terminal finger-like appendages, for guid- winter. (The inscct in its natural 



ing thfe eargs: ^, eggs, greatly magnified ; . -, •, i 



A, a flower of 'wheat showing the iarv» Size and as it appears when magni- 



npon the kernel; i, larva in repose; *' ^ ^ j | iuY\g. 2, together with 



its natural size; ;, larva crawling with ^^'-^' *'^ "" o > o 



its horns extended;,/', its natural size; j|-g pcro-g and larvse). 

 '• greatly enlarged view of anterior end '"^ 



when moving on a dry surface with its 

 horns but partially extended; I, posterior 

 end with teeth protruded to aid in motion. 



From estimates made by the Sec- 

 horns but partially extended; Z, posterior r j-i „ /M.;^ C!i-,<^„ T?^,.„1 ,t 



- ■ ^ ---^ retarv of the Unio State JJoard of 



*In ISSti, in Livingston county, N. Y.. 2,000 acres, on flats which would have yielded 

 thirty bushels an acre, were not harvested. 



+ Fitch's Sixth Report (p. 12), Transactions New Tork State Agricultural Society, s.x, 

 1860, p. 754. 



