514 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. | 
seasons of great drought it makes a clean sweep. In former years 
most of these bugs were destroyed by prairie fires, but as cultivation 
extends less prairie is burned over, and their numbers have annually 
increased. Mr. Daniel F’. Rogers gives the following account of their 
depredations in 1865: i 
There was never a better show for wheat and barley than we had here on the 10th 
of June, and no mere paltry crop has been harvested since we have been a town. 
Many farmers did not get their seed. In a field of barley where the chinch-bugs had 
been at work for a week I found them moving in solid column across the road toa 
corn-field opposite, in such numbers that I felt almost afraid to ride my horse amon 
them. The road and fences were alive with them. Some teams were at work mend- 
ing the road at this spot, and the bugs covered men, horses, and scrapers, till they 
were forced to quit work for the day. The bugs took ten acres of that corn clean to 
the ground before its hardening stalks—being too much for their tools—checked them. 
Another lot of them came from a wheat-field adjoining my farm into a piece of corn, 
stopping now and then for abhite, but not long. Then they crossed a meadow, thirty 
rods, into a sixteen-acre lot of sorgo, and swept it like a fire, though the cane was then 
scarcely in tassel. From wheat to sorgo was at least sixty rods. Their march was govy- 
erned by no discoverable law, except that they were voraciously hungry and went 
where there was most to cat. In a neighbor’s field, that fortunately was sown early, 
we found them moving across his premises in such numbers that they bid fair to drive 
out the family. House, crib, stable, well-curb, trees, and fences, were one creeping 
mass of stinking life. In the house as well as outside, like the lice of Egypt, they 
were everywhere ; but in a single day they were gone. 
‘Their ravages have been sometimes checked by surrounding a field 
with a barrier of pine boards set up edgewise, and partly buried to keep 
them in position, keeping the upper edge moistened with coal-tar, daily 
renewed. Deep holes are dug outside of this barrier, and the bugs, ar- 
rested in their march, wander about and, tumble into the holes, from 
which they are shoveled out literally by cart-loads. In hot, dry sea- 
sons their ravages are always the worst; in wet seasons it is impossible 
for them to do any considerable amount of damage. 
As the chinch bug has to get at the roots in the spring, upon which 
she lays her eggs, the looser the soil is the greater the facilities offered. 
Hence the advantages of fall plowing; or if plowed in the spring, the 
land should have several heavy rollings. Iarmers notice that wheat har- 
rowed in upon old corn ground without any plowing is far less infested 
by these bugs than when putin upon land that has been plowed, and they 
cannot thrive in wet, soggy land. : 
The chinch bug has many insect enemies. Tour distinct lady-birds 
prey upon it, (as well as upon the eggs of the Colcrado potato bug, and 
upon those of certain bark lice ;) also the lace-wing fiy, (Chrysopha plora- 
bunda,) the Insidiosus flower bug, (Anthocoris imsideosus, Say,) and the 
common quail of the Middle and Western States. This bird should be 
protected from the gun of the sportsman in every State where the 
chinch bug is known to run riot. The amount of damage done by this 
insect is almost incredible. It was estimated that in 1864 “ three-fourths 
of the wheat and one-half of the corn crop were destroyed by it through- 
out many extensive districts, comprising almost the entire Northwest,” 
almounting to many millions of dollars. As the ravages of this insect 
have assumed alarming proportions, Mr. Riley has devoted a large part 
of his report to the subject, which farmers will do well to examine. In 
summing up the habits of this insect, he considers the following points 
firmly established : 
1. Chinch bugs hybernate in the perfect or winged state, in any old, dry rubbish, 
under dead leaves, in old straw, in corn-shucks and corn-stalks, among weeds in fence 
corners, &c. Therefore, all such substances should be burned up, as far as possible, in 
the spring. 
2. The earlier small grain can be sown in the spring, the more likely it is to escape 
the chinch bug; for it will then get ripe before the spring brood of bugs has had time 
to become fully developed at the expense of the grain. 
