24 



in spring, yet a few timely, drenching rains will outbalance all of these 

 factors, and our wisest prognostications fail of proying true. It is 

 this yery factor of uncertainty that renders unlikely the successful 

 carrying out, oyer any large area of country, of any protective meas- 

 ures, where, as in this case, the benefit to be deriyed y ill only be real- 

 ized nearly a year afterwards, if at all. The average farmer, when 

 smarting under a hea\y loss, will often take such long-range ])recau- 

 tions as to sow belts of flax, hemp, clover, or buckwheat around his 

 wheat fields once; but if the chinch bugs do not ai)}>ear, and he .sees 

 the useless investment of time, labor, and seed, he will be likely to 

 conclude next year to take the risk and do nothing. For the present, 

 then, we have no method whereby we can prevent the chinch bugs 

 from taking up their abode in wheat fields or timothy meadows and 

 raising their enormous families there, except to destroy tlie adults in 

 their winter cpuirters. 



The writer once tried to destroy the young in a wheat field by 

 spraying wdth kerosene emulsion the small areas of whitening grain 

 that indicated wdiere the pests were massed in greatest abundance. 

 The result was unsatisfactory, and it is very doubtful if it is possible 

 to apply this measure W'ith any degree of success, and we are forced 

 to the conclusion that, for the present at least, w^e shall be obhged 

 to rely upon the measures previously given. It therefore becomes 

 of the utmost importance to clean up the roadsides, and the ground 

 along fences and patches of woodland, as well as any other places 

 likely to afford protection for the hibernating chinch bugs. There 

 are, of course, obstacles in the way of carrying out this plan generally 

 over any large area of country, and especially in sections where the 

 rail fence predominates. But as the country gets older it will be 

 found that it is not chinch bugs alone that seek these places in which 

 to pass the winter, but myriads of the other insect foes of the farmer 

 as w^ell, and that careful attention to the condition of roadsides, 

 lanes, hedgerows, and waste places about the farms, during the 

 season when insects seek out these places wherein to pass the winter, 

 will pay well for the time expended in that direction. It may come 

 about that some phase of the street-cleaning reform may invade 

 the country, and it is certain that if such were to occur it would, 

 in time, save the country enough to go far toward reducing the 

 expense of securing good roads. In fact, the term "good roads" 

 ought t<j include the proper care of the roadsides, as w^ell as the 

 grading aiul macadamizing of the roadbeds themselves. 



There are at present so-called ''weed law^s" in many vStates, and, 

 though more or less of a dead letter in most cases, these laws are 

 steps in the proper direction. The time when insect pests will be 

 looked upon in the eye of the law as so many public nuisances, and 



[Cir. 113J 



