756 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
1IIDGB. AMERICAN HISTORY. 1857 — 1859 . 
counties along the lake shore west of Toronto and those border¬ 
ing on the Niagara river, committing excessive ravages in the 
latter. It is also reported as having been seen this year at dif¬ 
ferent points to the west of this and found common though not 
destructive along the Detroit river. On the Michigan side of 
this river it is said to have made its appearance previously, in 
1853 (Hind’s Essay.) 
In 1851 this insect was again excessively numerous and des¬ 
tructive. Here in Washington county the wheat was so badly 
injured that many fields were not harvested. An intelligent far¬ 
mer of Granville, whose business rendered him well acquainted 
with that town, informed me that full two-thirds if not three- 
fourths of the crop there was destroyed ; and other towns were 
little if any more fortunate. Its ravages in the Genesee district 
(Monroe and Livingston counties) have already been mentioned. 
Through the state the loss this year probably exceeded what it 
was in 1854, the important western section now participating 
with the rest of the state in this calamity. In Canada it was 
also terribly destructive, taking one-third of the entire wl*3at 
crop of the province it is said, or about eight millions of bushels. 
There was no wheat sowed in my neighborhood in 1858, the 
only time such an event has occurred, within my memory. A 
field of barley within my observation was as badly infested by 
the midge as wheat commonly is. Though this insect was pre¬ 
valent over the country generally, this year, it does not appear 
to have occasioned important losses except in those western coun¬ 
ties where it had newly arrived. 
Early in 1859 we had exulting accounts from Seneca county 
that the midge had almost totally disappeared there, it being 
conjectured that the heavy frost on the night of June 4 th, occur¬ 
ring when the insect was about changing to its perfect state, had 
destroyed it. It is more probable that having had its period 
of extreme destructiveness after its first arrival, it had now 
declined and measurably vanished, the same as noticed of it in 
so many other places. For other parts of the state to which the 
frost had equally extended had no such exemption. Here at the 
east the midge was certainly as common as it ordinarily is, and 
some fields were materially injured by it, although over the state 
generally the wheat crop of this year was a remarkably fine one. 
One of the most unexpected and remarkable vicissitudes that has 
