230 
tant from Saxe-Cobnrg and Saxe-Altenburg, where, as we have 
already seen, the same insect did much damage to the wheat crops 
in 1833.” * 
At Long Island, then, as shown by Dr. Fitch, the Hessian-fly 
originated, and from this point gradually spread over the wheat area 
of the colonies, and afterwards of the United States, enlarging its 
limits of distribution with the corresponding increase in the extent 
of the wheat area of our country. 
It spread more rapidly at first towards the eastward, nearly to the 
end of Long Island and to Shelter Island. As Havens remarks, “It 
was first perceived a little before harvest, and appeared to have 
come from the west end of Long Island in the gradual progress of 
between twenty and thirty miles a year.” 
In ten years after its importation into America, it reached Pros¬ 
pect, N. J., about forty miles southwest of Staten Island, and in 
1788 it was noticed at Trenton, N. J., and in Philadelphia. Un¬ 
doubtedly, had there been railroads at that time, with the rapid 
transit of grain-cars, and bales of hay and straw, it would have 
spread at least with three times the rapidity of its recorded rate of 
diffusion. 
In 1789 the fly first reached Saratoga, a point situated 200 miles 
north of its original point of departure. “The insect reached here 
by a regular progress from the south, coming nearer and nearer each 
successive year.” 
It appeared west of the Alleghanies in 1797, though in what state 
we are unable to learn, while Virginia was invaded in 1801, and 
North Carolina about the year 1840. Westward its progress brought 
it to Ohio in 1840, and three years later it was detected in Michi¬ 
gan. In 1844 it was destructive in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, 
Wisconsin and the eastern border of Iowa, while it was common in 
the Middle Atlantic States, and became destructive in Northern 
Georgia in 1845. Meanwhile it had reached Western Canada in 1805. 
North of Connecticut it seems to have existed only sporadically, and 
to have maintained only a temporary foothold in Vermont and Maine 
in 1850-52, and has never been noticed in New Hampshire or in 
Massachusetts. Minnesota was visited in 1860, and probably earlier. 
It must have reached Missouri, Arkansas and Texas long previous 
to the date given in our table, but probably the year it entered Eastern 
Kansas (1871-72) is not much posterior to its arrival here, and this 
is at present its most westernmost limit. No traces of it, so far as 
, we can learn, have been seen in Nebraska. 
Does the Hessian-fly migrate ?—As regards the so-called migrations 
of this insect, we would express our disbelief in any such movement 
from place to place as is involved in the idea of the word migra¬ 
tion. The history of the insect simply shows that it has steadily 
spread from its original point of introduction to new sections of the 
* Sir Joseph Banks drew up a report on this insect for the Privy Council, dated March 
22,1789 He states that “since its first appearance in Long Island it has advanced at the 
rate of fifteen or twenty miles a year, and neither waters nor mountains have impeded its 
progress. It was seen crossing the Delaware like a cloud, from the Falls township to 
Wakefield: had reached Saratoga, 200 miles from its first appearance, infesting the coun¬ 
ties ot Middlesex, Somerest, Huntington, Morris, Sussex, the neighborhood of Philadel¬ 
phia, all the wheat counties of Connecticut, etc., committing the most dreadful ravages, 
attacking wheat, rye. barley and timothy grass. The Americans who have suffered by this 
insect speak of it in terms of horror.”—Dobson’s Encyclopedia, viii, art. Hessian-fly. 
* 
