24 YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



wheat, the learned lecturer had been surprised to find in every 

 field, multitudes of the Chlorops, Oscinis, and Thrips, insects 

 which have long been known in Europe as most pernicious to 

 the wheat crops there, but which have never been suspected as 

 occurring upon this side of the Atlantic. Some of these depre 

 dators are preying upon it at every stage of its growth, the 

 root, the tender blade, the stalk, the ear, and the ripening 

 grain in the ear all having particular enemies infesting them. 

 Now originally, when our country was covered by an unbroken 

 forest, there was no wheat here, nor other plant of the wheat 

 kind, on which such insects could subsist ; consequently when 

 the lands were first cleared and sowed to wheat a bountiful 

 harvest was gathered. But the thrifty fields of this grain, with 

 which our country then abounded, invited these insects to 

 them. One after another arriving and finding here an ample 

 supply of its favorite food, would remain, ever afterwards lay 

 ing the crop under contribution for its support. Thus, as these 

 enemies successively penetrated the country and became estab 

 lished in our wheat fields, their productiveness gradually dimin 

 ished, till at length it was no longer possible to grow this grain 

 with profit, and in all the older sections of our country its 

 cultivation has long been abandoned. To form some idea of 

 the immense losses these pests are occasioning, look at the 

 wheat midge, which has been ravaging our fields for the past 

 twenty-five years. To appearance it is an insignificant little 

 yellow fly, only a fourth the size of a mosquito ; but though it 

 seems so powerless and inert, it was able in New York State, 

 in 1854, to destroy wheat to the value of over $15,000,000, or 

 nearly as much, probably, as the whole city of New Haven is 

 worth, with all its houses, buildings, and lots. If an invading 

 army had destroyed property to this value, how the whole 

 country would have been aroused ! Multiply this tremendous 

 loss by that sustained in all the States, and what a result is 

 there for our contemplation ! The wheat midge, however, is, 

 sad to say, not our only insect enemy, for the name of the army 



