CHINCH BUG WEST OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER. oF 
affected both crops and chinch bugs to such an extent that wheat was 
almost a failure and the numbers of the bugs were greatly reduced. 
The winter wheat which was seeded in September and October, 1910, 
was seeded in a very dry soil; very little of it sprouted. A few 
localities were favored with a shower of rain in September which 
sprouted the grain, and the bottom fields along the rivers and creeks 
contained enough moisture to sprout the grain and produce a fair 
crop. As a result of the drought, however, very little wheat 
matured on the uplands. 
The chinch bugs went into hibernation in a very weakened condi- 
tion because the grasses had dried up in the fall. Many of them did 
not reach their usual winter quarters but stopped in almost any place 
they could find. Many hibernated in trash in alfalfa fields where a 
small percentage succeeded in living through the winter. The death 
rate of hibernating bugs was greater than in any previous winter 
included in this study; in some of the bunches of Andropogon 60 per 
cent of the bugs were dead. When the first warm days of spring 
occurred the few bugs that were left were very inactive and the 
migration to green fields, which had been so noticeable in former 
years, was lacking. However, there was a migration during some 
very hot days in the latter part of April—over a month late. The 
dying of the bugs during the winter was probably due to two causes, 
one being the starved condition of the bugs when they went into 
hibernation and the other the hot days during the winter followed by 
the very cold days in the spring. During these hot days in the middle 
of winter the bunches of grass would be swarming with the bugs and 
the very next day the thermometer would register 8 to 10 degrees 
below zero. In spite of all these adverse conditions many of the 
bugs lived to infest the fields in the spring. 
The failure of wheat caused the farmers to plant other crops in 
many of these fields, but some of them were left standing until May 
in the hope that a crop would be produced. The bugs reached the 
few fields that were left, damaged the plants considerably, and de- 
posited numbers of eggs. Many wheat fields were seeded to oats after 
the wheat failed, thus leaving the few wheat plants growing in the 
fields for the young bugs to feed upon. At no time could young bugs 
or eggs be found on the oat plants. Notwithstanding the fact that 
numbers of farmers lost several plantings of corn in 1910 by planting 
the infested wheat field to corn, hundreds of acres of corn were planted 
in such fields in the spring of 1911, only to be destroyed later. There 
were areas of 8 to 10 square miles that did not contain an acre of 
wheat after the middle of May, all of the fields having been planted 
to other crops. In these localities where the wheat was missing the 
bugs were also missing, and where the wheat was plentiful the bugs 
were very plentiful and did considerable damage to adjacent corn. 
