296 CHINCH BUG REMEDIES. 



by which it was possible to subdue it. Dr. Le Baron thinks if 

 improbable that any remedy can ever be discovered whereby tc 

 prevent its devastations. My own belief is very different. I 

 do not think Providence has sent any injurious insect into our 

 world, but that when we come to study its history and habits? 

 and become fully acquainted with its economy, we can discover 

 some point where it is assailable, and human ingenuity will be 

 able to devise methods by which it will be practicable, either to 

 destroy the insect, or to shield the vegetation on which it preys. 

 from its depredations. Though often, no doubt, much patient 

 investigation and many experiments conducted by different per- 

 sons will be necessary, before we can arrive at the most certain 

 and successful remedies. 



As regards the chinch bug, if the facts reported are true r we 

 think they point us to a feasible mode for subduing it. They 

 indicate that moisture is most uncongenial to this insect, If. 

 when it is overruning the land in myriads, a wet season arrives? 

 it is at once quelled in its career. Mr. Williams speaks of its 

 ravages as having been perceptibly checked by a single heavy 

 rain. And it appears from the statement of Mr. Albert Burnet 

 that so slight a circumstance as the dew evaporating before the 

 morning sun, first upon the south and east sides of a field, often 

 causes it to congregate upon those sides of the field exclusively. 

 In view of these facts it would seem that by drenching that part 

 of a field in which these insects are clustered, with water, by 

 means of a fire or a garden engine, they may be washed from 

 the plants and destroyed. Though it will be a formidable task 

 to shower a large wheat field profusely, yet if the crop can here- 

 by be saved from ruin, it will amply repay the expense. But 

 commonly it is only a narrow strip upon one side of the field 

 which will require this operation. And where there is a brook 

 or stream of water passing through or adjacent to a wheat field, 

 this measure can certainly be resorted to, repeatedly should it 

 be necessary, at no great cost. When the small red bugs, the 

 tender young larva? of these insects, have made their appearance 

 and are clustered about the roots of the wheat plants, in the 

 month of June, they can probably be more easily destroyed, than 

 at any subsequent stage of their lives. And it is earnestly to be 



