339 
No. 150.] 
State of Illinois. Ohio sustained but little injury. It is not no¬ 
ticed north of Maryland, in the central parts of which State it is 
reported that on nearly all the light lands the Hessian fly made se¬ 
rious ravages, and in many instances rendered the crops totally 
worthless. In Georgia,moreover, its ravages in the counties around 
Milledgeville are said to have been dreadful ; whole fields were to¬ 
tally destroyed, and others yielded not more than a fourth of an or¬ 
dinary crop. 
We regret that we have not at hand the requisite information, for 
tracing with equal precision the ravages of this insect during the 
past year, 1846. From such notices as we have casually observed 
in the public papers, we presume that through the country general¬ 
ly, it has been unusually numerous. In this vicinity, some fields 
have produced less than a fourth of what they would have done, 
but for the invasion of the fly last autumn, after an absence of over 
forty years, and its great increase in the spring. On sandy soils in 
Saratoga and the north-west parts of Rensselaer counties, several 
fields were observed early in July w r ith the wheat stalks so “ few 
and far between,” that no harvesting of them would be attempted ; 
Whilst many others had been, at an earlier period of the season, 
plowed up and occupied with spring crops. In the western section 
of the State, it has also been quite destructive. The loss from the 
fly alone, says the Genesee Farmer , (vol. vii. , p. 251,) will doubtless 
be at least 500,000 bushels. In those districts of Illinois, Wisconsin, 
and Iowa, which are contiguous to the Mississippi river, it appears 
to have been common, and also in eastern Pennsylvania. From a 
minute in the proceedings of the trustees of the Maryland Agricul- 
tual Society, w r e learn that t; so great ravages have not been com¬ 
mitted by the Hessian fly, since 1817. On some of the best land 
wheat has been plowed up, and other portions are so much injured, 
that they will not be w r orth harvesting. At least one-half of the 
crop of Talbot county has been destroyed.” And in the upper 
counties of Georgia, it is said, “ the fly has committed such ravages 
upon the wheat, as scarcely to leave enough seed for another year.” 
Its Name and Synonyms. 
It is a somewhat trite but very true adage, that “names are 
things.” Every one who has had occasion to search through files 
