56 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 15 



express his desire to continue or discontinue the work under the new 

 arrangement. From the niimber responding, there were selected 

 nineteen schools. 



Shortly after the beginning of the school year, arrangements were 

 made for the entomologist to spend one day with each of these nineteen 

 schools. The program for the day consisted of a short talk on the 

 lessons which had been received, a short laboratory exercise, and a trip 

 to the farms nearby where insects were studied as they occur in nature. 

 One or two demonstrations of insect control, such as fumigating a wheat 

 bin for weevil, and burning the bunch grass for the chinch bugs were 

 given. One very interesting feature of the field trip was teaching the 

 boys and their parents how to find Hessian fly. On these field trips we 

 usually collected various insects, some which were of economic im- 

 portance. 



The vocational teachers cooperating with the county agent invited 

 the parents of the boys to join us on the field trips. Some of these 

 field trips were very well organized and planned. For example, at 

 Beloit, Mr. S. D. Capper, vocational teacher, has a class of fifteen boys. 

 At the beginning of the school term, Mr. Capper invited the parents of 

 his boys to meet with him in the school room for the purpose of organ- 

 izing an advisory council. 



On receiving word that I would spend a day with him, Mr. Capper 

 called a meeting of his advisory council and they planned the program 

 of the day. It consisted of an hour given to discussing insects followed 

 by farm visits where we studied various insects. The parents of the 

 boys, and neighboring farmers had been invited to attend these meetings 

 and on our arrival at the first farm, we were greeted by an even dozen 

 of them who had come to see the demonstration. We went into a 

 Sudan grass field where chinch bugs had recently been very nimierous, 

 having damaged the grass to a considerable extent. The farmer had 

 not plowed the sudan grass, but had left it for this occasion. To his 

 great surprise and chagrin, we could not find bugs in the sudan grass. 

 He then essayed to take us to another place where he knew the bugs 

 were plentiful; this time to a com field, where the com had been cut 

 and shocked. Here, again, he was disappointed, for all that he could 

 show us were great piles of molted skins of chinch bugs. At this time I 

 discussed the chinch bug and its habits, paying especial attention to 

 hibernation, after which we tramped across the field to the roadside 

 where the blue-stem grass was growing in great clumps. Here is where 

 we found the missing bugs. We set fiie to a small strip of the bunch 

 grass, thus demonstrating the most effective method of control for this 

 pest. 



