1846.] Insects Injurious to Vegetation. 259 



rican wheat reached this country^ the measure was at once re- 

 gaided as having resulted from misinformation respecting the habits 

 of this insect. The supreme executive council of Pennsylvania 

 immediately addressed a letter to the Philadelphia Society for Pro- 

 moting Agriculture, requesting the society to investigate and re- 

 port to the council the nature of the Hessian fly, and particularly 

 whether the quality of the grain is affected by it. The society 

 promptly replied, " that from every communication made to them 

 on that subject, they are decidedly of opinion that it is the plant 

 of the wheat alone, that is injured by this destructive insect, that 

 what grain happens to be produced from such plants, is sound and 

 good, and that this insect is not propagated by sowing Avheat 

 which grew on fields infected with it." They also refer to the 

 letters of Col. Morgan, and of Messrs. Vaux and Jacobs, as con- 

 taining the best information extant, relative to the natural history 

 of the insect, and the most successful method of preventing its 

 depredations. [Carey^s Museum, \o]. iv., p. 244.) 



Dr. Currie took an active part in showing the government and 

 people of England, that the information which had led to the 

 closing of the ports against the entry of American grain, was wholly 

 erroneous; and in eight or ten months the government bought the 

 stored wheat at prime cost, kiln-dried it, and resold it at great 

 loss. The prohibition was taken off almost immediately thereaf- 

 ter. (^Memoir of Currie, ii., 65.) 



The Hessian fly " reached Saratoga, two hundred miles (north) 

 from their original station, in 1789," says Dr. Harris, though on 

 what authority is not stated. Of its correctness, however, there 

 is no doubt. From the statements of several persons who were 

 residing in Washington and Saratoga counties so long ago as this 

 date, it appears that the crops in this district of country, (at that 

 day second to no other in the quantity of wheat which it pro- 

 duced,) first began to fail about the year 1790 or 1791. The in- 

 sect reached here by a regular progress from the south, coming 

 nearer and nearer each successive year. It continued to infest 

 the crops during a number of the following years, sometimes se- 

 verely, at others but moderately. On two or three occasions, 



