LOSSES FROM INSECT DEPREDATIONS. 



Agriculture, the loss to the wheat crop from the same insect during 

 the same year in that State was even greater than in NewYork. 



In 1867, the insect having extended its ravages over a larger portion 

 of the State of New York, the loss exceeded that of 1854. In Canada, 

 the same year, it destroyed about e ig] it 'millions of bius] ids. 



The cash value of the wheat and corn destroyed in the year 18G4, in 

 tiie State of Illinois, by the chinch-bug — Blissus Uucopieruii (Say), 

 is estimated at seveiity-lhree millions of dollars.* 



The same insect injured the wheat, oats, and corn in the State of 

 Missouri in 1874, as appears from estimates made in the larger number 

 of counties in tlie State, to the amount of nineteen millions of dollars.\ 



The loss to corn, potatoes and other crops in the States of Kansas, 

 Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri in 1874, from the ravages of the liocky 

 Mountain locust — Calopteniis sjrretus Uhler, is computed by the 

 United States Entomological Commission at nearly fifty-six millions 

 of dollars, and the actual loss to the four States is estimated at one 

 hundred millions of dollars.J The insect is shown in Fig. 3, at a, in 



Fig. 3. — The Rocky Mountain Locust a, compared with the Red-legged locust (Ca^^<e»«s 

 feniur-ruhrum b). 



comi)arison with the shorter winged red-legged grasshopper (Caloptemis 

 femur-riibrum), at b, common in the State of New York and in most 

 of the Northern United States east of the Mississippi river. 



For the same insect, from county returns of loss upon grain alone in 

 the western portion of ]\Iissouri,in 1875 (omitting several counties that 

 made no returns). Professor Riley figures an aggregate in twenty-six 

 counties o^ fiftee)i millions of dollars.^ Single counties suflfered to the 

 extent of two millions of dollars. 



Careful estimates of damage sustained from the cotton-worm — 

 Ahtia argiUacea Hubner (the moth of whicii is represented in Fig. 4), 



upon an assumed value of S50 jier bale 

 on the nunil)er of bales less than an 

 average crop, give, as the annual loss 

 for the fourteen years prior to 1878, in 

 several of the cotton States, tlie folio w- 

 ingamounts: Georgia, $3,912,000; Louis- 

 Tu.MuruoKTHE Cotton iana, 14,487,000 ; Alabama, 14,789,000; 

 Mississippi, 60,150,000 ; Texas, §7,406,- 

 000; and in nine of the principal cotton States, tlie following result : 



Fig. 4. 

 Worm {Atetia aryillucta llilbn.) 



* Riley's Second Rep. Ins. Mo., 1870, p. 23. 



i Seventh Heport Ins. Mo., 1S75, p. 25. 



X First Ann. J?ej). U. S. Eiit. Commis., 1878, p. 121. 



§ Riley's EujJdh Rep. Ins. Mo., 187(5, p. 'JO. 



