INSECTS. 
217 
stroy tlie insect, at the same time that it does 
not injure the wheat. This insect has been 
known in America but a very few years; ac¬ 
cording to the general opinion, it originated on 
the eastern shore of Maryland, where a person, 
in expectation of a great rise in the price of 
wheat, kept overall his crops for the space of 
six years, when they were found full of these 
insects; from thence they have spread gra¬ 
dually over different parts of the country. For 
a considerable time the Patowmack River 
formed a barrier to their progress, and while the 
crops were entirely destroyed in Maryland, they 
remained secure in Virginia; but these insects 
at last found their way across the river. The 
A 
Blue Mountains at present serve as' a barrier, 
and secure the country to the westward from 
their depredations** 
* There is another insect, which in a similar manner 
made its appearance, and afterwards spread through a great 
part of the country, very injurious also to the crops. It is 
called the Hessian Fly, from having been brought over, as is 
supposed, in some forage belonging to the Hessian troops, 
during the war. This insect lodges itself in different parts 
of the stalk while green, and makes such rapid devastations, 
that a crop which appears in the best possible state will per¬ 
haps, be totally destroyed in the course of two or three days, 
in Maryland, they say, that if the land is very highly ma¬ 
nured, the Hessian fly never attacks the grain 3 they also 
say, that crops raised upon land that has been worked for a 
long time are much less exposed to injury from these in- 
