263 
No. 105.] 
mill, will frequently demonstrate that it was present in much greater 
abundance than was surmised. These facts plainly show, that this 
insect might lurk a long time in our country wholly unobserved. 
Mr. Jewett says the wheat-fly first appeared in western Vermont in 
the year 1820, (New Eng. Farmer , vol. xix. p. 301.) It was not r 
however, till the years 1828 and 1829 that it became so numerous as 
to attract the attention of community ; the same years, be it observed, 
when its ravages were so annoying in Scotland. It was in the north¬ 
ern part of Vermont, bordering upon the line of Lower Canada, where 
it became so excessively multiplied at this time; and from that, as a 
central point, it seems to have extended in nearly all directions. In 
this vicinity, one hundred and twenty-five or fifty miles south of the 
locality above indicated, it was certainly observed in 1830 ; and in 
1832 the wheat crops were so completely destroyed by it, as 
to lead to a general abandonment of the cultivation of this grain. 
This was the year in which the malignant cholera swept over our 
land, and it was a common remark, that what the pestilence spared 
famine bade fair to destroy. Having spread east over Vermont and 
New-Hampshire, it in 1834 appeared in the State of Maine, and con¬ 
tinued to advance in that direction, it is said, at the rate of twenty or 
thirty miles a year. Westward its progress would seem to have been 
less rapid, and along the Mohawk river by no means so generally 
destructive. It is not till within a year or two past, that it has ap¬ 
peared in the Black river country east of Lake Ontario, as I am in¬ 
formed by an intelligent gentleman resident there; nor until the pre¬ 
sent season that it has been so injurious as to induce in some instan¬ 
ces a premature mowing of the crop, and preserving it for hay. Ru¬ 
mor states that farther west, in the wheat-noted Genesee country, 
it has been detected for the first time the present year. 
The amount of injury inflicted by this insect will be more distinctly 
and vividly realized, if we can arrive at some approximation to the 
sums of money that have been lost to certain districts in consequence 
of its presence. The Maine Farmer, vol. xiv. No. 2, states that “a 
million of dollars, nay, more money, would not pay the damage it has 
done to the state of Maine, alone.” Half of that sum, it is probable, 
would not repay the loss which has been sustained merely in Washing¬ 
ton county, N. Y.—a county embracing (the untilled mountain district 
bordering upon Lake George being deducted,) a population of about 
