NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



damage in New York, Ohio and Canada of at least $80,000,000. The 

 chinch bug. Bliss us leucopterus Say, between 1850 and 1887, was 

 responsible for losses amounting to $350,000,000, while grasshoppers, 

 between 1874 and 1875, destroyed crops valued at $571,000,000. The 

 cotton worm, Alabama a r gi 1 1 acea Hubn., caused an estimated annual 

 loss of $15,000,000 during the 14 years following the Civil War according 

 to Dr Packard, that for 1873 being placed at $25,000,000. These records 

 afford only an approximate idea of the damage caused by insect depreda- 

 tions. Several authorities have attempted to estimate the total loss in the 

 United States due to such causes and have placed the amount at from 

 three hundred to four hundred million dollars annually. This estimate is 

 probably a fair approximation of the amount of damage. 



Dr A. S. Packard has placed on record a statement that every spruce 

 tree west of the Penobscot was killed by insects in 1818, and that in 1874 

 the forests of spruce and fir in Maine, New Hampshire and New York 

 began to be destroyed by the wholesale,' which in large part was due to the 

 depredations of bark borers. 



Prof. C. H. Peck, now state botanist, observed extensive injuries to the 

 spruce forests of the Atlirondacks in 1876 by the spruce bark beetle, 

 Dendroctonus piceaperda Hopk. The trouble was so serious in 

 some places that in 1883 a correspondent of A^af/oii stated that in one large 

 tract in Essex county he was unable to find i tree in 20 alive. The com- 

 paratively recent outbreak of Dendroctonus frontalis Zimm. in 

 1891-92 covered an area of something over 50,000 square miles in West 

 Viro-inia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and probabl\- New Jersey, as estimated 

 by Dr A. D. Hopkins, who has made a special study of this insect. The 

 infested area in West Virginia alone was estimated by him at 15,000 square 

 miles. There was in 1897 a serious outbreak of a bark beetle, identified as 

 Dendroctonus piceaperda, in northern New Hampshire and in 

 adjacent territory in Vermont, Maine and Canada, as reported by Dr C. M. 

 Weed. 



' U. S. Ent. Com. 5th Rep't. 1890. p. 811, 817. 



