Siath Annual Report. 13 
eon and is not to be recommended until the economic value of the whole 
method has been more satisfactorily tested. It seems barely possible that cul- 
«9, ‘The precise economic value of this method 3 is not as yet, by any means, 
fully known. It seems to be, in Illinois, at best a means of hastening the ap- 
pearance of the muscardine and He Ben ata its Spread among chinch- bugs 
We may say, in brief, that the agricultural effect of a chinch-bug attack is 
o hasten and intensify the evil consequences of drought; and that the contagious 
EDactor Forbes gives the following suggestion * with regard to 
surrounding the infected material after it has been placed in 
“It is most likely to ‘catch’ in low spots, where the soil is kept somewhat 
moist by dense vegetation, a mat of fallen herbage, or the like. Shocks of corn, 
especially when the crop is cut early, furnish excellent places for the development 
of this disease. Indeed, the presence in any field of spots especially favorable to 
the growth of the Sporotrichum infection seemed, according to our observations, 
to have much more to do with the appearance and spread of the white muscar- 
_ dine among chinch-bugs than even the most persistent distribution of dead or 
infected specimens in the absence of such natural culture beds—a fact which 
contains the suggestion of a new method for the propagation and dissemination 
of this disease. /t will be well worth while, consequently, to try the effect of ex- 
-eessive moisture and an inviting shelter on here and there a spot in an infested field, 
such as might be afforded by an overgrowth of small grain produced by heavy fer- 
_tilization, or by tramping down a few hills of corn, or by the early cutting and shock- 
ing of some small part of the crop. If no spontaneous development of muscardine 
were to mee such spots would at any rate be excellent places to start a field in- 
_ fection.’ 
The coal-tar-barrier method of killing the bugs when they are 
‘passing in masses from the small grain into the corn was tried 
_ by Doctor Forbes with success.t He says: ‘‘ It compares most 
~ favorably with the use of contagious diseases, resulting in the 
_ wholesale destruction of untold myriads of bugs, and being in- 
_ dependent of the weather and other uncontrollable elements of 
- the situation.’’ 
