292 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



ticular group of plants, so long as they are large enough and tender 

 •enough to allow them to burrow inside their stems. 



From what has been said, one can readily see that it is not necessary 

 to unduly w^orry about these insects when they are found infesting the 

 iirst few rows of corn. Uusually by the time the insects are discovered 

 the bulk of the work has been accomplished, and no economic remedy 

 is at hand for the destruction or prevention of this trouble. About the 

 only thing that one can do is to guard against the probability of these 

 insects getting into the first few rows of corn adjacent to the grass land 

 by mowing the grass and" feeding it out to stock immediately before the 

 larvae have a chance to come out and migrate to other plants. This can 

 "be easily determined because one will notice certain stems of the grass 

 plants dying and turning white, while the others are perfectly green, 

 and the rest of the plant below the point of entrance of the larva is still 

 g-reen. Outside of these simple methods of getting rid of the larvae that 

 one finds infesting the neighboring grass fields, there is nothing the far- 

 mer can do to rid himself or prevent or check the injury from these in- 

 sects. 



THE CHINCH BUG. 

 Blissus leiicopteriis, Say. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The chinch bug is perhaps the most widely destructive insect affect- 

 ing the corn plant. It is broad in its selection of food, and infests nearly 

 all the members of the grass family. This includes, of course, the wheat 

 and other grains, and the corn et al. While it will feed when forced 

 to, on account of the scarcity of other varieties, upon practically all mem- 

 bers of the grass family, yet it has its preferences, and seems to prefer, 

 other things being equal, such cultivated grasses as Hungarian grass, 

 Panicum crus-galli, millet, Setaria glauca, bluegrass, wheat, corn sor- 

 ghum, broom corn, Bermuda grass and crab grass. It will thus be seen 

 that the insect will live and multiply upon various grasses in regions 

 where there is very little or no wheat or corn. In the State of Missouri 

 the insect does its vast amount of damage by attacking the wheat and 

 corn plants. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The distribution of the chinch bug in North America is confined 

 very largely to that portion east of the Rocky Mountain region, extend- 

 ing from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The insect is found 

 west of the Rocky Mountains in only isolated places. By observing the 



