302 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
have presented a gloomy picture to the farmer of our section of 
the State. 
Some eight years aga we heard of the midge being seen and 
felt in seme of the counties eastward. In Cayuga, then after¬ 
wards in Ontario, and then, the next year, in Yates; but, as yet, 
we knew nothing of the insect, except from report. It seemed to 
us like some eastern plague traveling westward, with which, in 
turn, we were doomed to be afflicted. 
Our wheat crops grew luxuriant and productive, while our 
neighbors of Ontario and Yates, complained of their being “ cut 
off.” We had full garners of fine plump grain, while they reaped 
little else but straw and chaff. 
About five years ago, some of our farmers began to discover 
appearances of the midge in their wheat. A corner of a field, 
or the outer edges, were somewhat injured, but nothing very 
material was developed for a year or two; but gradually the 
ravages seemed to increase, particularly in the crops more back¬ 
ward and late. It was then said “ you must sow your wheat so 
that it will come to maturity early, in order to escape the (wee¬ 
vil), midge.” Our farmers consequently sowed earlier than usual, 
but the ivinged enemy , by some means, managed to make their 
appearance just at the particular time they could commit the 
greatest injury; as if to put to nought all our wisdom and pre¬ 
caution, they totally destroyed all our earlier crops, and left the 
later unscathed. 
Then, to avoid the insect, our farmers sowed late, so that the 
crop would come in after the period of its ravages. Some of our 
spring wheat, by this, has escaped; but I know of no particular 
rule that will guard us against its ravages, like 'all spoilers of 
the property and substance of others, they are ever on the alert 
for plunder. 
The crop of 1858 was mostly destroyed by the (weevil) midge. 
The winter wheat did not average more than five bushels per 
acre throughout the county; whole fields were hardly worth 
harvesting. The spring wheat, sowed late, fared better and pro¬ 
duced a fair yield. I should calculate that, on the average, the 
midge destroyed the crop of winter wheat in our county, to the 
value of seventy-jive per cent of the whole crop. 
I have heard of one or two fields, where the midge did not 
make their appearance, and the yield was consequently from 
twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre; these are now the excep¬ 
tions to the general rule. 
