16 



[Galveston (Tex.) News, May 18.] 



Sherman, Tex., May 17. — J. P. Harrison, president of the Texas Grain Dealers' 

 Association, in reviewing the grain crop, said to the News reporter: "There will be no 

 oats raised in Texas north of Waco. In Coryell and adjacent counties the reports are 

 not quite so discouraging, and it may be that sections may produce enough to supply 

 Texas with seed. The condition in Texas is duplicated in the Indian Territory, 

 where the situation can be attributed directly to the green bugs. In Oklahoma the 

 bugs did not do much damage. But for drought, which came and finished their 

 work, Oklahoma might have had a pretty fair crop. There will be little or no wheat 

 made. Occasionally a field is heard from that will harvest a fair yield. I can only 

 account for it on the theory that the fields were a little forward and the stalks tough 

 enough to withstand the bug." 



[Galveston (Tex.) News, May 30.] 



The small grain crop of the State will not exceed one-fourth of last year's yield. 

 The average in wheat and oats is less and the conditions 75 per cent ))elow the aver- 

 age of May, 1900. The yield is cut short owing to the early spring drought and to 

 the ravages of the aphis or green bug. The damage by the pest, although amount- 

 ing to total losses in many fields in choice grain counties, is slight compared with 

 general damage due to want of moisture early in the growing season. The reports 

 annexed cover 161 counties, 105 of which were free of the insect pest, while all the 

 counties reported suffered for the want of moisture. 



The pests appeared in numbers early in April, multiplied rapidly, were rajjacioug 

 of appetite, and gluttonous without apparent satiation, repleti(jn, or surfeit, and began 

 to disappear in flurries in May. When the bugs attained the ferial stage they rose 

 in a body from the ravaged field, took flight, remained on the wing for hours, and 

 drifted with the wind. During storms they sought safety near the l)ase of the wheat 

 or oat blades. The farms intervening between the points of ascent and descent 

 sustained no insect damage, but suffered from drought. The drought preceded 

 the advent of the aphis, the 40 counties reporting "green bugs" also chronicling an 

 early spring drought. The percentage of losses where not separately given combine 

 the damage from both causes. 



The wheat crop in the Chickasaw and Cherokee and portions of the other three 

 nations in the Indian Territory, and in Oklahoma, ravaged by the grain louse, has 

 greatly reduced the value of this year's crop in those Territories. In some regions 

 the injury has been so great that farmers have preferred to replant the wheat acreage 

 to some other crop. The louse, like its relative in Texas, is capable of very rapid 

 multiplication, is gluttonous in appetite, and is favored by dry weather. The gen- 

 eral trend of the migration of the insect, as in Texas, was from south to north. 



GENERAL REMAEKS. 



In view of the overwhelming- evidence as to the destructiveness of 

 this pest to wheat and oats in the gTain-prodiicing- States, it seems 

 strange that it should have escaped notice until the year 1884. 



Whether this plant-louse is indigenous to this country or whether 

 it has been introduced from abroad is a difficidt question to answer. 

 At any rate, according to the notes of the Department of Agriculture, 

 it was first observed in the more central section of States bordering- 

 the Atlantic Ocean, which seems to indicate that in some way it man- 

 aged to reach our shores on a vessel from the southern part of Europe, 

 entering one or the other of the ports of this central section, from 



