First and Second Report
Noxious, Beneficial and Other Insects
of the State of New York
by Asa Fitch, M.D.
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First and Second Report on the Noxious, Beneficial and Other Insects of the State of New York by Asa Fitch, M.D. (Albany, NY: C. Van Benthuysen, Printer to the Legislature, 1856), 336 pp.
Asa Fitch (1809-1879), No. 2015, was "entomologist of the N. Y. State Agricultural Society; member of the Entomological Society of France, of Pennsylvania, etc." This two-part report was "made to the State Agricultural Society, pursuant to an appropriation for this purpose from the legislature of the state."
An unusual feature of the report is that, instead of arranging the species in scientific order, Asa chose to discuss the insects as they affected various plant life—particularly the fruit trees of New York state. As he put it, "A person who meets with a worm, say, mining a cavity in the leaves of the apple tree…knows not whether that worm is the larva of a Coleopterous, a Lepidopterous, or some other Order of Insects, and consequently is at a loss in what part of a work upon noxious insects…to look for an account of it." And so, he started with the apple tree and devoted the first 104 pages to the insects that infect its roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. Then come pears, peaches, etc.