REPORT OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST 1902 119 



wheat midge, Diplosis tritici Fitch, inflicted in 1854, ac- 

 cording to the estimates of Dr Fitch, a loss of $15,000,000 in New- 

 York State, or reduced the crop by about 7,000,000 bushels. A 

 conservative estimate of the damage during the same year, by 

 J. H. Klippart, secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, 

 places the loss in that state at from 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 bushels. 

 Two years later Dr Fitch estimated that from one half to two 

 thirds of the wheat crop on the uplands of Livingston and Monroe 

 counties was destroyed, and that nearly all of that on the flats, 

 the latter comprising at least 2000 acres, was not harvested. Dr 

 Fitch further states that the loss in 1857 probably exceeded that 

 of 1854, and that one third of the entire crop, or about 8,000,000 

 bushels, was destroyed in Canada. The periodical injuries by 

 the Hessian fly, Cecidomyia destructor Say, are well 

 known, and it is not necessary to refer to them more than to 

 mention that in 1846 it was estimated that in the western section 

 of New York State there was a loss of not less than 500,000 

 bushels, and in our recent outbreak in 1901, the damage in New 

 York State was placed at |3,000,000. Dr Marlatt has estimated 

 that the loss in the Ohio valley on the crop of 1899-1900 

 amounted to from $35,000,000 to $40,000,000, and he places the 

 minimum annual loss in the chief wheat growing sections of 

 the country at 40,000,000 bushels and over. The exceedingly 

 common codling moth, Carpocapsa pomonella Linn., 

 is well known as a destructive insect; and it may be interesting to 

 record Dr Forties's estimate of $2,375,000 as the annual loss 

 caused by it in the State of Illinois, while Professor Slingerland 

 has placed the average damage in New York State at $3,000,000. 

 In the southern states, enormous injuries by the cotton worm, 

 Aletia argillacea Hiibn., are well known. The average loss 

 in the cotton states for the 14 years following the Civil War was 

 estimated by Dr Packard at $15,000,000, and that for 1873 was 

 placed by the same author at $25,000,000. Later, in 1S77, he 

 estimates the annual loss as ranging from $25,000,000 to 

 $50,000,000. These are a few examples of what some of our in- 

 troduced insect pests have done, and represent only a very small 

 fraction of the entire loss, which in many cases can not be esti- 

 mated with any approach to accuracy. It should perhaps be 



