26 



several times and most carefully and completely prepared for corn, 

 which was planted, but with the result that a portion of the field was 

 attacked and destroyed by chinch bugs, largely of the short-winged 

 form. An examination about June 10 revealed the bugs in consider- 

 able numbers about the plants still remaining, but scattered over the 

 field were more or less numerous clumps of timothy, in some cases 

 apparently killed by the chinch bugs, while in others the bugs were 

 literally swarming about the dying but still green clumps of grass, 

 thus showing that they had either not been buried by the plowing and 

 cultivation of the ground or else the grass had not been thoroughly 

 covered, and thus ladders had been left whereby the bugs were enabled 

 to climb to the surface. 



SUMMARY OF REMEDIAL AND PREVENTIVE MEASURES. 



In summing up the matter of remedial and preventive measures for 

 the control of the chinch bug, it may be stated that the insects can be 

 destroyed in their places of hibernation by the use of fire. The}^ can, 

 under favorable meteorological conditions, be destroyed in the fields, 

 if present in sufficient abundance during the breeding season, by the 

 use of the fungus Sporotriclium glohuliferum, if promptly and carefully 

 applied. They can be destroyed while in the act of migrating from 

 one field to another by tarred barriers or deep furrows supplemented 

 by post holes and by burying them under the surface of the ground 

 with the plow and harrow, or the latter method may be applied after 

 the bugs have been massed upon plats of some kind of vegetation for 

 which the bugs are known to have a special fondness, these decoy 

 plats being so arranged as either to attract the females and induce 

 them to oviposit therein or to intercept an invasion from wheat fields 

 into cornfields. When these decoys have been turned under with a 

 plow and the surface immediately smoothed and packed by harrow 

 and roller the bugs wdll be destroyed, while in the cornfields they 

 can be destroyed on the plants by the application of kerosene emulsion. 

 Without vigilance and prompt action, however, only indift'erent results 

 are to be expected from any of these measures. 



PROSPECTS OF A FUTURE OUTBREAK. 



The past history of the chinch bug in America indicates a series of 

 years of the insects' abundance and destructiveness, followed by peri- 

 ods of comparative immunity from its attacks. For a number of 

 years there have been no serious ravages and, in fact, until within the 

 past two years the pest has hardly been noticed by farmers; but 

 within the last year (1908) there have come a number of complaints 

 of serious injury, and, while these outbreaks have so far been of a 

 rather localized character, they seem nevertheless to betoken the 



[Cir. 113] 



