284 CHINCH BUG SUNDRY STATEMENTS. 



This information is communicated to me by Mr. Albert Bur- 

 net, of Merc'er county, 111., who further states, that in that vicin- 

 ity the chinch bug was the most numerous last year (1855) that it 

 has ever been known. Having attended a reaping machine through 

 the season of harvest, he says it was noticed in a number of 

 instances, that these insects were most numerous upon the south 

 and east sides of the fields. This is probably owing to these 

 parts of the field being more warm and dry, from their greater 

 exposure to the sun. And where a low damp "spot occurs in a 

 field, the grain or corn is there wholly exempt from injury, 

 although all the rest of the field may be badly affected. He 

 says he first saw the insect in 1850, at which time it was very 

 abundant. The two following years it was but little noticed, 

 but the three dry summers which have now occurred have 

 increased it prodigiously. 



William Patten, of Sandwich, De Kalb county, informs me that 

 it was in 1850 that it was first noticed in his neighborhood, and 

 that last summer it was more destructive than it had ever been 

 before, the last sowed wheat being greatly injured by it in many 

 fields. The early wheat in Illinois, as in Carolina, is ripened 

 before the bugs become so numerous as to injure it. 



Charles Hastings of La Salle, tells me the chinch bug had not 

 been noticed in his vicinity until the year 1854, and it then did 

 but little damage, but the following year many fields were much 

 injured, and some were so much damaged that they were not 

 harvested. 



Edward McCollister of Juliet, tells me it has been less destruc- 

 tive the present year (1856) than it was last, though it has 

 everywhere been quite a serious evil this season. Wheat from 

 fields which have been infested by the chinch bug is readily dis- 

 tinguished by the grain dealers, the kernels not being plump 

 and full, but more or less shrivelled and light of weight. These 

 insects seldom if ever injure the first crop upon newly broken 

 prairie. A strip of greater or less width upon one of the sides 

 of a field is sometimes destroyed in autumn, when the plants are 

 but a few inches high. Entering the field upon the side adjacent 

 to an old wheat field, they advance with the regularity of an 

 army, farther and farther, killing every leaf and spear as they 



