280 CHINCH BUG IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 



prodigious numbers threaten to be even a more serious eviL 

 They are called chinch bugs in Virginia, though they have no 

 resemblance to our domestic pests (the bed-bug, which is com- 

 monly named the " chinch 1 ' at the south), but their disgusting 

 smell. They are nearly the shape and size of the small black 

 flour weevil; can fly, but take to their wings reluctantly; have 

 no mandibles, but a proboscis with which they penetrate the 

 stalks of plants near the jmnts, and suck them to death. They 

 have destroyed my oat crop totally; I shall not make the seed 

 sown; my white May wheat, harvested the 28th of May, came to 

 maturity too early for them r and was but slightly injured; but 

 my white bearded wheat, harvested the 12th of June, was seri- 

 ously injured by them — many ears not having a single grain 

 filled in them. Bad as this is, it is nothing to what followed; 

 for as soon as the small grain was cut, they took to our corn- 

 fields in such myriads as is inconceivable to any but those who 

 have witnessed them. I have seen some of my corn so perftctly 

 black with them for two feet up, no particle of grain was to be 

 seen but five or six inches of the tips of the leaves; and they 

 hung to the under parts of them in knots like little swarms of 

 bees. It takes them only one or two days to destroy the corn. 

 From such an attack I saw no remedy bat burning them up ? 

 corn and all; and by prompt doing so in that part of the field 

 into which they first migrated in such immense numbers, hope I 

 have saved the rest of it from total ruin, though patches of corn 

 in some of my other fields have been totally killed." (Cultiva- 

 tor, vol. vi, p. 103.) Although Mr. G. does not surmise that 

 this excessive increase of the chinch bug was caused by any 

 peculiarity of the season, yet we learn from another part of his 

 communication that the weather at this time was remarkably 

 dry and hot. He says, " We are suffering severely from drought. 

 The whole spring has been dry. Our gardens are burnt up, with- 

 out having yet given us anything. Our corn is in a most 

 deplorable state — so wilted it must perish if we do not get rain 

 in a few days. We have had but one rain to wet the earth 

 below the furrow of a shovel plow since the 8th of May, and 

 very little all April." 



