4 Farmers’ Bulletin 1223. 
- Two other outbreaks for which the losses were estimated were 
those of 1871 and 1874, in which the ravages of the insect were 
enormous and widespread throughout the States of Indiana, Illinois, 
Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. The loss in 1871 
in these seven States has been computed at $30,000,000. In Missouri 
alone the loss in 1874 was computed at $19,000,000, and for the seven 
States at upward of $60,000,000. 
The next serious outbreak for which the losses were estimated oc- 
curred in 1887 in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Min- 
nesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas. The damage in this year 
amounted to $60,000,000, the greatest loss occurring in Illinois, Iowa, 
Missouri, and Kansas. 
In the years 1892 to 1897 an outbreak in Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and Illinois, reaching its maximum in Ohio in 1896, caused a loss 
estimated at not less than $2,000,000 for the last-named State alone. 
The total estimated loss in the United States for the period from 
1850 to 1915 is placed at fully $350,000,000. In round numbers this 
is at an average yearly rate of $5,385,000 during the entire period of 
65 years. 
The average annual loss sustained by the most heavily infested 
States taken as a whole has been estimated at 5 per cent of the wheat 
crop and 2 per cent of the corn crop. On the basis of the average farm 
value of the foregoing crops for the years 1912, 19138, and 1914, at 
normal prewar prices, the annual loss in the wheat crop would be 
$20,000,000; in the corn crop, $24,000,364; in the grain sorghums, 
$2,009,985; and in broom corn, $94,000. The total annual loss to 
the farmers of the United States from chinch bug depredations in 
these crops would, therefore, run upwards of $46,104,349. 
HOW THE CHINCH BUG INJURES CROPS. 
The chinch bug feeds upon growing crops throughout its entire 
life. It is armed with a four-jointed beak, equipped with lancets 
for piercing the plant and starting the flow of sap, which is sucked 
into the stomach. In feeding it imparts a reddish stain to the plant ~ 
parts attacked and causes the death of plant cells. The feeding of 
a large number of bugs on growing plants prevents normal growth 
and ane about a dw ane or falline of plants and a reduteion of 
yields. A concerted attack Fath as Gfien occurs in young corn and 
forage sorghums may kill the plant outright or so weaken it that it 
remains small and fails to yield at all. 
WHERE THE CHINCH BUG OCCURS. 
The principal distribution (fig. 1) of the chinch bug in North 
America extends from the Rocky Mountains eastward to the Atlantic 
Coast, and from Manitoba to Texas. The States in which destruc- 
