8 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 657. 
in the Carolinas and in Virginia, where the bugs migrated from the 
wheat fields at harvest to the corn, and in 1840 there was a similar 
outbreak, and both wheat and corn were seriously injured. In all 
of these cases, however, there is no recorded estimate of the actual 
financial losses resulting from the attacks of the chinch bug. Accord- 
ing to Le Baron during the years from 1845 to 1850 the insect ravaged 
Illinois and portions of Indiana and Wisconsin, and in 1854 and 
1855 it again worked serious injury in northern Illinois. The writer’s 
earliest recollection of the chinch bug and its ravages in the grain 
fields of the settlers on the prairies dates from this last outbreak. 
Mr. B. D. Walsh estimated the loss to the farmers of Illinois in 1850 
at $4,000,000, or $4.70 to every man, woman, and child living in the 
State. 
In 1863, 1864, and 1865 the insect was again destructive in Ilh- 
nois and other Western States, its ravages bemg especially severe 
in 1864, when we have another attempt at computation of the 
financial loss. Dr. Henry Shimer, of Mount Carroll, Ill, who had 
carefully studied the chinch bug, estimated that ‘‘three-fourths of 
the wheat and one-half of the corn crop were destroyed by the pest 
throughout many extensive districts, comprising almost the entire 
Northwest.’”’ In criticizing the doctor regarding another point, 
Walsh and Riley! admit that the estimate was ‘‘a reasonable one,” 
and, taking it as a basis, with the actual cash price per bushel, com- 
puted the loss at about 30,000,000 bushels of wheat and 138,000,000 
bushels of corn, with a total value of both amounting to over 
$73,000,000. Of course all computations of this sort are necessarily 
only approximately correct, but there is more likelihood of an 
underestimate than of an overestimate in this case. 
There was a serious outbreak of the chinch bug in the West in the 
year 1868, and again in 1871, but in 1874 the ravages were both 
widespread and enormous. Le Baron computed the loss in 1871 
in seven States, viz, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, 
Wisconsin, and Indiana, at $30,000,000.2 Riley computed the loss 
in Missouri alone in the year 1874 at $19,000,000, and added the 
statement that for the area covered by Le Baron’s estimates in 1871 
the loss in 1874 might safely be put down as double, or upward of 
$60,000,000.2 Dr. Cyrus Thomas, however, estimated the loss to 
the whole country for the same year at upward of $100,000,000.* 
The next serious outbreak of the chinch bug of which we have an 
estimate of the losses occurred in 1887 and covered more or less 
1 Walsh, B. D., and Riley, C. V., editors. Amount of damage done by the chinch bug. Jn Amer. Ent., 
_v. 1, no. 10, p. 197, June, 1869. 
2 Le Baron, William, First Annual Report on the Noxious Insects of the State of Illinois, p. 144. Spring- 
field, Il., 1871. 
3 Riley, C. V. Seventh Annual Report on the Noxious, Beneficial and other Insects of the State of 
Missouri, p. 24-26. Jefferson City, Mo., 1875. : 
4 Thomas, Cyrus. The chinch bug. U.S. Ent. Com., Bul. 5, p. 7, 1879. 
