752 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
MIDOB. ADVANCES THROUGH CENTRAL NEW YORK AND IN CANADA. 
grain were abandoned. Less interest was consequently taken in 
this subject, and for a few of the following years we notice but 
little on record respecting it, except that it continued to advance 
in our state west up the Mohawk river, and south along the Hud¬ 
son, occupying Columbia and Dutchess counties. Though I see 
it occasionally mentioned as occurring on Long Island, I infer 
from the letter of Hon. J. B. Smith (Transactions of 1858, p. 297) 
that it has never invaded the eastern part of that island, and 
that probably at the southern extremity of our state the midge 
reaches a climate too warm and where the wheat crop comes for¬ 
ward too early for it to thrive and be destructive as it is farther 
north. 
Having advanced up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, it in 
1849—’50 commenced its destructive career in the counties along 
the north side of that lake, travelling westward it is said at the 
rate of about nine miles each year. At the same time it was 
making a similar progress on the opposite side of the lake into 
the great grain growing district of our own state. Having ex¬ 
tended itself through central New York, it was quite injurious in 
Seneca county in 1849, and appeared in Wayne county in the 
following year. 
We now come to a remarkable period in our experience with 
this insect, showing how very tantalizing it is, and how unable 
we are from the indications of one or two years to form any cor¬ 
rect judgment of what its numbers will be the succeeding year. 
In 1852, although in those districts at the west where it had 
newly arrived it continued to do formidable injury, over all the 
territory where it had been longer established it appears to have 
occasioned but slight losses. And the following year, 1853, we 
were the most exempt from it that we had been at any time 
before, since its arrival. Here in my own vicinity, although the 
yellow larv® were to be found in the wheat bars of some of our 
fields, they were so very few that it was the current report that 
no injui-y whatever had been done by this insect. This led to a 
much more extensive sowing of wheat than had been customary. 
But the j'ear 1854 proved to be one of the most disastrous to 
the wheat crop over the whole country, that had yet been ex¬ 
perienced. It was devastated as.it never had been before except 
when the insect had newly arrived, and in some localities it was 
even more destructive now than it had been then. When many 
