I MINUTES OCT. 



132. of fifty miles an hour : confequently, a flight 

 of infects, even fuppofing them to make no 

 ufe of their wings to impel them forward, 

 might be brought from Norway to this coaft 

 in ten hours. In one week they might, pro- 

 vided their wings could bear them, be brought 

 to us from the moft eaftern confines of the 

 Ruffian empire. 



If no exotic flights arrive, the few which 

 furvive the winter, here, efcape in a manner 

 unnoticed, and the plants receive no percep* 

 tible injury : but, when to thefe the foreign 

 fwarms are added, their progeny become too 

 powerful for the plants ; and the devaftation 

 becomes confpicuous and alarming ; produ- 

 cing that dreadful calamity to this country, 



*' A CANKER YEAR *." 



* Were an apology for the length of this and the fore- 

 going Minutes on this fubject to be required, I (hould 

 make the following : Finding, on the perufal of thefe Mi- 

 nutes, that I was poficfTed of a minutial detail of fafls, 

 relative to the hiftory of an infect, which has been in> 

 perfectly attended to by naturalifts ; but which is of the 

 greateft importance to the agriculture of this country ; 

 more efpecially of the Diftric~l whofe praclice I wifli to 

 defcribe with accuracy and minutenefs ; I did not heiitate 

 jn my determination to publiib. them entire. I determined 

 with greater readinefs as I have found, fince thofe obferva- 

 tions were made, that the deftru&ion caufed by this alarm- 

 ing infeft, has, in fome well cultivated districts, thrown a 



damp 



