STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
815 
MIDGE. PARASITES. WHEAT INSECTS OP NEW TORE. 
secure it regardless of everything else that accompanied it in the 
net that I was able to obtain a fair proportion of these insects. 
By collecting in this way nearly a thousand insects from the 
wheat heads, and counting the numbers of each kind, I found the 
result to be as follows : 
Insects on the wheat in New York at the time it was in bloom 
in the year 1861. 
Wheat midge..59 per cent. 
Small gnats, (Chironomus, etc.)__ 12 “ 
Grain aphis. 1 “ 
Thrips . 4 “ 
Bugs, (Hemiptera and Homoptera,)_ 3 “ 
Chlorops and kindred flies. 3 “ 
Mites and Podurae. 2 “ 
Mistaken parasite. 9 “ 
Other parasites.. 1 “ 
Of these insects the gnats and Podurte probably do no injury 
to the wheat; all the others are pernicious except the parasites, 
which are beneficial. 
Let us now enquire what insects and other destroyers of the 
wheat midge we have here in America. 
It is a subject on which I have often pondered : How does it 
happen that the midge in this country is so vastly more destruc¬ 
tive than it is in its native haunts? There it has never been 
known to devastate the wheat crop to any extent approximating 
to its ravages here. Mr. Kirby after a patient gathering of the 
data, estimated that it destroyed about two kernels to each ear, 
or one twentieth of the crop. When it was so destructive in 
Scotland in 1828, Mr. Gorrie estimates it to have caused a loss 
of about a third in the late-sown wheats. Moreover when it 
chances to become so multiplied and injurious as to attract 
notice, it is but a transitory evil which subsides in a few years, 
after which it is scarcely known or heard of again till another 
generation has come upon the world’s stage. Here, on the other 
hand, it persistently continues; seldom a year passes but that 
the wheat crop suffers greatly from it, and every few years a sea¬ 
son comes when its ravages are enormous. We have now had 
thirty years experience with it, and know it continues to be as 
formidable and destructive at the present time as it has been at 
