DCHP-1 Online

Hessian fly † 

• a small flying insect, Phytophaga destructor, whose larvae does much damage to wheat crops.

  • This pest was so named because of the mistaken belief that it was imported into North America in the straw bedding of Hessian troops during the American Revolution.

  • 1788  (1789)  The Hessian Fly, or, as is more generally called, the Flying Weevil, was first observed in the Southern Provinces about 50 years ago, and since that time has regularly extended itself to the Northward, without quitting a place where it has once got possession.
  • 1855  Some of the farmers in this vicinity assure us of the presence of the Hessian fly.
  • 1947  (1957)  
    I used to think the cut-worm and the weevil,
    Were things that blindly come and go by chance,
    And Hessian-fly an undiluted evil,
    To make the farmer shudder in his pants. . . .