HESPERIDES 



2788 



HESSIAN FLY 



west of Toronto. Railway transportation is 

 provided by the Grand Trunk Railway, and 

 an electric line connects with the Canadian 

 Pacific Railway at Gait. The people of Hes- 

 peler are largely engaged in making woolen 

 cloth and woolen apparel; over 700 people 

 are employed in these mills. Other establish- 

 ments make enameled ware, furniture, wood- 

 working machinery, stoves and furnaces. The 

 town hall was completed in 1916 at a cost 

 of $40,000. The surrounding district is well 

 adapted to fruit, truck farming and dairying. 

 In 1911 the population, chiefly Canadian, was 

 2,368. R.E.W. 



HESPERIDES, hesper'ideez, in Greek leg- 

 end, Agle, Arethusa, Erytheia and Hesperia, 

 the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis, who 

 guarded the golden apples which Gaea, or 

 Earth, presented to Juno on her marriage to 

 Jupiter. The sleepless dragon, Ladon, assisted 

 the maidens in their guardianship of the sacred 

 fruit. It was the eleventh labor of Hercules 

 to obtain the golden apples (see HERCULES, 

 subhead The Twelve Labors) . The Hesperides 

 are frequently referred to in the classics; an 

 example is found in Shakespeare's Pericles: 



Before thee stands this fair Hesperides 



With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touched, 



and Whittier in his Barefoot Boy gloats over 

 his boyhood memory in the words: 



Mine, on bending orchard, trees, 

 Apples of Hesperides ! 



HESSE, hes, until 1919 a grand duchy of 

 the German Empire, known as Hesse-Darm- 

 stadt until 1866. It is divided into two main 

 portions: a northern division, consisting of 

 the province of Oberhessen (Upper Hesse), 

 and a southern, formed by the provinces of 

 Starkenburg and Rheinhessen (Rhenish Hesse). 

 Oberhessen occupies the territory between the 

 basins of the Weser and the Rhine Rivers; 

 Starkenburg lies between the Main and the 

 Rhine, and the latter river separates Rhein- 

 hessen from Starkenburg. The total area of 

 Hesse is 2,965 square miles, which is a little in 

 excess of the area of Delaware. 



The people of the former grand duchy are 

 engaged chiefly in agriculture and' mining. 

 More than three-fifths of the available land 

 is cultivated; nearly 40,000 acres are planted 

 to grapes and about 7,500 acres to sugar beets. 

 Among the grain crops, rye and barley take 

 the leading place. Iron, manganese, salt and 

 coal constitute the mineral wealth of the duchy. 

 The principal towns are Darmstadt, the capi- 



tal, Offenbach, Mainz, Worms and Giessen. 

 Education is everywhere compulsory, and there 

 are excellent secondary schools aad colleges. 



The name of this little duchy has figured 

 in European history since the beginning of 

 the Christian Era, and has been applied to a 



FORMER 

 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 



LOCATION OF HESSE 



country of varying boundaries. The present 

 grand duchy was known as Hesse-Darmstadt 

 until the time of the Seven Weeks' War (1866) 

 between Austria and Prussia, when it was re- 

 duced to its present limits; in 1871 it was in- 

 corporated into the German Empire, and in 1919 

 into the republic at that time established. Pop- 

 ulation, 1910, 1,282,000. 



HESSIAN, hesh'an, FLY, a frail, two- 

 winged insect whose young (larvae) are very 

 destructive to wheat crops. When flying, it is 

 a harmless, tiny speck in the air, but as a 

 magot, in the base or the stalk of wheat, it 

 causes the de- 

 struction of about 

 ten per cent of 

 the wheat crop of 

 the United States 

 and Canada 

 alone . This 

 means 'a loss of 

 over 40,000,000 

 bushels of wheat 

 a year, enough to HESSIAN FLY 



make 3,528,000,000 loaves of bread sufficient 

 to furnish one loaf a day for 147 days to every 

 inhabitant of a city of 2,000,000 people. In 

 addition to this destruction, it also does con- 

 siderable damage to barley and rye. 



This pest received its name from an un- 

 founded belief that it was introduced into 

 America in the bedding-straw of Hessian 

 troops employed to fight against the Americans 

 during the War of Independence (see HES- 



