195 
assured that the fly with eggs could not be introduced in the grain. 
As long since as 1800, Dr. S. L. Mitchell, of New York, affirmed 
that “the insect is more formidable to us than would be an army 
of twenty thousand Hessians.” (Herrick.) 
Between 1789 and 1803, severe losses ensued from its attacks in 
Saratoga and Washington counties, New York. “On two or three 
occasions, many of file fields in Saratoga were entirely destroyed.” 
In 1804, President Dwight, of Yale College, remarked that “this 
insect is feeble and helpless in the extreme, defenseless against the 
least enemy, and crushed by the most delicate touch, -yet for many 
years it has taxed this country annually more, perhaps, than a mil¬ 
lion of dollars.” (Herrick.) 
In 1803 and 1804, in the neighborhood of Richmond, Va., “they 
swept whole fields. In 1817, it “renewed its ravages, in various 
sections of the country; was unusually abundant,” and “in parts of 
Maryland and Virginia, it was, perhaps, more destructive than it 
had ever been before.” 
At what year the Hessian-fly first occurred in the New England 
States is uncertain; so far as we can ascertain it was first noticed 
at New Haven, Conn., in 1833, by Mr. Herrick, a careful entomo¬ 
logist, but without doubt it was introduced from New York early 
in the century. 
In Lower Canada it was, according to Hind,* between 1805 and 
1816, “prevalent and destructive in some parts,” but in 1830-’36 it 
disappeared in Lower Canada. 
The fly first appeared in 1837 at Paw Paw, Mich., in the second 
crop sown in Van Buren county; none had been raised at a point 
nearer than twelve miles. (D. Woodman.) 
The Hessian-fly has been known in Person County, North Caro¬ 
lina, for fifty years; and another correspondent writes us from 
Goldsboro, N. C., that— 
“Previous to the period, say 1840, our farmers had been accus¬ 
tomed to sow wheat as early as September, but a fly, called by 
them the ‘Hessian-fly,’ so depredated that they deferred sowing to 
the latter part of November, and now, generally, to ‘between the 
Christmases’ (new and old Christmas); their crop is now unmo¬ 
lested by the Hessian or any other fly.” 
The losses in Pennsylvania in 1842 were heavy, the wheat crop 
of the State being estimated at 20 per cent, less than in the pre¬ 
vious year, the fly being the principal cause of the loss. At this 
year Ohio was visited by them, when “it appeared to be increasing 
so much that serious apprehensions were beginning to be felt re¬ 
specting its future ravages.” (Fitch.) 
Great havoc in many fields in Maryland and Virginia was com¬ 
mitted by it in 1843. In the following year it did much injury in 
Northern Indiana and Illinois and the contiguous parts of Michigan 
and Wisconsin, in many places occasioning “almost a total failure 
of the crops.” In Michigan the wheat crop was almost an entire 
failure. On Long Island and at Rochester, N. Y., and throughout 
Pennsylvania the losses this year were severe; the following year 
*Essay on Insects and Diseases injurious to the Wheat Crops, by H. Y. Hind, Toronto. 
Canada, 1857, 8°, p. 139. 
