594 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
the Hessian fly, that we should expect it to be an insect of the same group, 
a two-winged instead of a four-winged fly. Small white worms are found, 
lodged in little cavities in the straw, mostly at the joints, causing the 
straw to become swelled, uneven and knotty. In the same box you will 
also see a specimen of the straw, shaved off so as to show the little cavi¬ 
ties in which these joint-worms lie, and also another piece of straw with 
one of these flies coming out of it—his black head protruding from the 
side of the straw, but so minute you will have to’ look sharp to see it. 
And on the upper side of this same straw are two small holes perforated, 
like pin-holes, from which flies have also come out and escaped. 
In this same box you will also see three specimens of the chinch-bug, 
an insect which has of late years severely injured the growing wheat in 
Illinois and the adjoining States, totally destroying it in some fields. This 
insect is also common through the southern states. It punctures and sucks 
the juices from the young wheat stalks; and in dry seasons it becomes so 
multiplied that the stalks are crowded and black with them, entirely ex¬ 
hausting the stalks of their juices, and causing them to wither and die. 
And after the wheat is harvested they emigrate to the corn fields, bleeding 
the cornstalks in the same manner. 
The parent insects of two of the most pernicious borers of our fruit 
trees, are placed in this fourth box—that of the apple and that of the 
peach tree. 
That of the apple tree you will see is a cylindrical beetle of a tawny 
brown or butternut color, with two white stripes the whole length of its 
body. This beetle drops its eggs in the crevices of the rough bark, near 
the root, from which small worms hatch which bore through the bark, and 
reside between it and the wood the first year, and the second year they 
bore into the solid wood, greatly injuring and often killing young trees. 
One or two facts may here be related serving to indicate the losses we 
are sustaining from this insect. In the year 1851, an agent of one of the 
nurseries in the central part of our State, canvassed the county of Wash¬ 
ington, and disposed of trees to the amount of $10,000 ; nearly all of 
them apple trees. The estimate will be a moderate one, to say that half 
of the trees which were thus introduced have now been destroyed by 
this borer; many persons have lost every tree or almost every one that 
they planted. We thus have a loss of 85,000 from this insect in this one 
county—without taking notice either of the expense of planting and nursing 
the trees; or of the many trees in addition to these, which particular per¬ 
sons obtained from other sources. 
A person visiting me a few months since, remarked, he would himself 
be willing to pay me a hundred dollars, if, by my researches, I would dis¬ 
cover some effectual method of protecting apple trees from the borer; as 
this insect had occasioned him losses far exceeding the sum he named. 
Without claiming the reward he offered, I informed him I had already 
experimented and would give him the very remedy he wished ; if ho would 
rub the bark of his trees with soap, the latter part of May each year, I 
