8 Farmers’ Bulletin 1217. 
parasite is able to work and multiply only during comparatively 
warm weather, while its host, the green-bug, is not so restricted, but 
keeps right on breeding unless the winter weather is very severe. 
For this reason the parasite of the pest can not be depended upon 
to safeguard the crops, and the grain grower must adopt proper 
methods of protection if he expects ever to prevent the recurring 
outbreaks of the pest which have become so notorious throughout 
the Mississippi Basin States. 
CONTROL METHODS. 
The green-bug can not be destroyed by means of stomach poisons, 
such as arsenical insecticides, because it feeds upon nothing but the 
juices of the plants. It is impracticable to fight it with contact in- 
secticides, such as nicotine sulphate or kerosene emulsion, not only 
because of the prohibitive expense involved but also because this 
pest often feeds in positions where it can 
not be reached with such sprays. 
In the control of the green-bug the old 
saying that “an ounce of prevention is 
worth a pound of cure” is most strikingly 
justified. In the southern half of its range 
the green-bug is dependent largely on vol- 
unteer grain for its existence from the 
time the crop of the current year is cut 
ye Re eye eum until the young grain is above ground in 
Enlarged; actual size, 0.75 the fall, or even until the following spring 
noe. LW ebstenand Paieee.) "in anally mecases: Ll neural y oan trees 
therefore, that if the volunteer growth is destroyed the insects 
must perish in large numbers for want of food, and experiments 
have shown that this is indeed the case. The most important control 
measure for the green-bug, therefore, is the destruction of all volunteer 
small grain, especially oats and wheat, during the period from midsummer 
to early fall. This method is of the utmost importance in Texas, Oklahoma, 
Kansas, and Missouri, where serious outbreaks may originate at any time 
and sweep northward throughout the wheat-belt States. 
It will not do for merely a few growers to adopt such measures, 
but they must be put into practice throughout large areas, wherever 
the green-bug winters in numbers, if satisfactory results are to be 
expected. The volunteer grain may be disked and plowed down 
or otherwise destroyed during the period mentioned above and 
some other short-season crop planted or the land fallowed until 
the next spring if the blowing or drifting of the soil is not a 
factor. 
