CHINCH BUG ITS DESTRUCTIVENESS. 283 



The chinch hug has now multiplied and extended itself over 

 all parts of Illinois and the adjacent districts of Indiana and 

 Wisconsin, and has become a most formidable scourge. The dry 

 seasons which have recently occurred have increased it exces- 

 sively. In passing over northern Illinois, in the autumn of 1854, 

 I found it in myriads. In the middle of extensive prairies, on 

 parting the grass in search of insects, the ground in some places 

 was found covered and swarming with chinch bugs. The ap- 

 pearance reminded me of that presented on parting the hair on 

 a calf that has been poorly wintered, where the skin is found 

 literally alive with vermin. Our western neighbors have for 

 many years been congratulating themselves upon the security of 

 their wheat crops, exempt from the midge and other insect dep- 

 redators which were causing us such losses here at the east. But 

 they now find they have in the chinch bug a foe more formida- 

 ble and destructive even than the wheat midge ; since it not only 

 cuts oif their wheat but in many localities it takes the corn and 

 other cultivated crops also. Although it is commonly only a 

 strip upon the outer edge of the field which they devastate, yet 

 in several instances the entire field is invaded and swarms with 

 them, so that no grain is developed in the heads, and some have 

 set fire to their wheat fields to consume the hosts of these ver- 

 min which were gathered therein, with the hope of hereby les- 

 ) ning the numbers upon their farms the following year. The 

 disgusting smell, moreover, which these bugs emit, is most loath- 

 some and sickening to the laborers engaged in harvesting the 

 wheat fields. Cilley's reaping machine, made at Elgin, Illinois, 

 has small deep boxes sunk in the platform, for the raker and 

 three binders to stand in, that they may not have to stoop to 

 their work as they would if standing upon the platform. As the 

 machine is in operation, the feet of the men standing in these 

 boxes become buried among the insects and fine chaff which fall 

 into them. The men are so annoyed by these vermin, thus cov- 

 ering their feet and crawling up their legs, that they many times 

 stamp to shake oft* and crush the tormenting things. And 

 whether dead or alive, when thus heaped together in masses, 

 such a stench arises from them, as, when wafted by the air it 

 happens to come full in one's face, is the most loathsome and 

 nauseating of anything that can be imagined. 



