662 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW YORK 
ASPARAGUS BEETLE. FIRST APPEARANCE OF THIS BEETLE. ITS DESTRUCTIVENESS, 
Beetle has been the most destructive. About three acres of his plants were 
almost ruineds and the loss which he sustained the past summer from this 
insect was full four hundred dollars. Adjoining Mr. Cock is Daniel Smith, 
whose crop is also given in our Transactions. He has five acres, and con¬ 
tiguous to him George It. Underhill has a similar amount. Though their 
crops were badly injured they suffered less than Mr. Cock. 
About seventy-five acres in and around Matinnecock are occupied with 
asparagus; and should this insect continue to multiply and increase the 
coming year as it did the past it will ruin every plantation in the place. 
As is shown by the freight bills of the steamboats, this crop brings to the 
town of Oyster Bay the sum of 820,000; one-half of which being clear profit, 
this insect threatens to occasion a loss to this town of ten thousand dollars 
annually. 
At a conversational meeting of the Queens County Agricultural Society, 
held in connection with its annual meeting, November 4, 1862, and reported 
in the pamphlet edition of the Society’s Transactions, pages 6 and 7, this 
insect was the principal topic of remark. Though the amount of asparagus 
grown in other towns than Oyster Bay was not definitely reported, it was 
there supposed that Flushing, Newtown and Jamaica each equaled Oyster 
Bay, and’that the two remaining towns of the county, North Hempstead and 
Hempstead, together produced perhaps a similar amount. The annual dead 
loss which it was thus estimated this insect was threatening to occasion the 
county was fifty thousand dollars. 
At Matinnecock I had the pleasure of forming the acquaintance of Mr. 
Young, President of the County Society, and was gratified to find he had 
bestowed such particular attention upon this insect and its habits that ho was 
able to give me exact information upon a number of points respecting which 
I wished to inquire, and to guide me to the most favorable places for making 
such personal examinations as I desired. The insect was first noticed at that 
locality the year before, in July, and it was then seen that it fed upon the 
asparagus ; but there were so very few of them that they excited no appre¬ 
hensions. This season more were to be seen upon single stalks of the 
asparagus than were noticed in all the grounds around there the year before. 
At the conversational meeting of the County Society above referred to, Mr. 
John Quin presented a written statement rendering it tolerably certain that 
at Astoria this insect was first noticed in the year 1859. And I recently 
learn that specimens of the beetle were found by the entomologist Henry 
Ulke, somewhere in or around the city of New York, at least as early as the 
year 1858 or ’59. Mr. Young has seen this insect at different points along 
the north side of Long Island, whereby he knows it is at present spread a 
distance of at least forty miles, from Williamsburgh to Huntington. 
The following facts stated at the conversational meeting above alluded to, k 
will serve to show the ravages of this insect at different localities in Queens 
County. 
At Astoria, Mr. F. ’Briell first noticed this insect on his beds in I860. 
Their depredations wore but slight that year, wore greatly increased in ’Cl, 
and this past summer one of his beds was entirely destroyed, the roots being 
