528 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
by which it was possible to subdue it. Dr. Le Baron thinks it 
improbable that any remedy can ever be discovered whereby to 
prevent its devastations. My own belief is very different. I 
do not think Providence has sent any injurious insect into our 
world, but that when we come to study its history and habits, 
and become fully acquainted with its economy, we can discover 
some point where it is assailable, and human ingenuity will be 
able to devise methods by which it will be practicable, either to 
destroy the insect, or to shield the vegetation on which it preys, 
from its depredations. Though often, no doubt, much patient 
investigation and many experiments conducted by different per¬ 
sons will be necessary, before we can arrive at the most certain 
and successful remedies. 
As regards the chinch bug, if the facts reported are true, we 
think they point us to a feasible mode for subduing it. They 
indicate that moisture is most uncongenial to this insect. If, 
when it is overruning the land in myriads, a wet season arrives, 
it is at once quelled in its career. Mr. Williams speaks of its 
ravages as having been perceptibly checked by a single heavy 
rain. And it appears from the statement of Mr. Albert Burnet 
that so slight a circumstance as the dew evaporating before the 
morning sun, first upon the south and east sides of a field, often 
causes it to congregate upon those sides of the field exclusively. 
In view of these facts it would seem that by drenching that part 
of a field in which these insects are clustered, with water, by 
means of a fire or a garden engine, they may be washed from 
the plants and destroyed. Though it will be a formidable task 
to shower a large wheat field profusely, yet if the crop can here¬ 
by be saved from ruin, it will amply repay the expense. But 
commonly it is only a narrow strip upon one side of the field 
which will require this operation. And where there is a brook 
or stream of water passing through or adjacent to a wheat field, 
this measure can certainly be resorted to, repeatedly should it 
be necessary, at no great cost. When the small red bugs, the 
tender young larv® of these insects, have made their appearance 
and are clustered about the roots of the wheat plants, in the 
month of June, they can probably be more easily destroyed, than 
at any subsequent stage of their lives. And it is earnestly to be 
