306 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



do not go to the trouble of cultivating the disease, but simply scatter in 

 their fields the bugs that we send them. 



The spores for this fungus require for their germination practically 

 the same conditions that the seed of your wheat or corn requires in order 

 to germinate — that is, the spores must have a considerable amount of 

 moisture in connection with heat, otherwise they will not germinate. If 

 the chinch bugs are in large numbers and the weather is hot and very 

 moist, these spores will germinate on the bugs, and the fungous plant 

 will kill them in great numbers. But if the weather is hot and dry, or too 

 cold, although it may be moist enough, then these spores will not germi- 

 nate, and no agriculturist has the power to bring about the proper con- 

 ditions in his wheat or corn field that will enable them to germinate.. 

 Hence you see that, although the farmer may obtain the chinch bug dis- 

 ease and scatter it in vast quantities throughout his field, if the climatic 

 conditions are not right, the chinch bug disease will not take, and will 

 do absolutely no good whatever. 



But some may say that in obtaining these diseased chinch bugs from 

 this oftice, and putting them in their fields, they introduce there the 

 spores that will germinate when the proper conditions are right. I wish 

 to say that it is very doubtful whether there is a wheat field or a corn 

 field in Missouri that does not now naturally contain spores of this dis- 

 ease. I have been impressed with this fact every summer; because, al- 

 most invariably, when the person applying for the chinch bug disease 

 sends to this office living chinch bugs that have been placed, as they 

 should be, in a tin box containing no dirt, but some green vegetable mat- 

 ter, as, for instance, pieces of green corn, wheat, or grass, and that box 

 closed up as it should be, perfectly tight, thereby generating moisture in 

 the box from these green vegetables, that by the time these bugs reach 

 me the box contains more diseased fungus-covered bugs than we return ; 

 thus showing that tiie spores were already there in his field, and all lliat 

 was required was the proper amount of heat and moisture in order to en- 

 able them to germinate. Knowing these facts, I can do no other than 

 to conscientiously advise the farmers of Missouri not to trouble them- 

 selves with obtaining and scattering this disease about their fields ; but 

 to rely entirely, as they will ultimately have to do, upon nature to bring 

 about the proper climatic conditions for the development of this disease 

 in their fields. Even if it were possible for the farmer in any way to de- 

 velop the proper conditions in his wheat field, then there would be no 

 ground for him obtaining this disease from any other source whatever. 

 Bear in mind that while I cannot advise agriculturists to trouble 

 themselves with this chinch bug disease, because of the reasons above 



