148 CHINCH-BUG. 



FOURTH. — THE METHOD OF DESTROYINa THE INSECTS BY BURNING OORN- 



bTALKS AND OTHER RUBBISH IN WHICH THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO 



HIBERNATE. 



"We have just adverted to the fact that when the small grains fail the 

 Chinch-bugs migrate into the corn, and that at this time they travel on 

 foot and confine themselves mostly to the outer rows. Bat shortly 

 after this, the young bugs acquire wings and then spread themselves 

 over the field in large flocks. It is a question of considerable impor- 

 tance, and one to which but little attention has been paid, whether these 

 insects materially damage the corn crop after this general scattering of 

 themselves, in the latter part of summer. From the circumstances of 

 the case, this question does not admit of a very easy solution. The 

 fact that insects require comparatively little nutriment after they have 

 attained their winged and mature state, taken in connection with the 

 vast extent and luxuriance of the western cornfields, and with the addi- 

 tional consideration that the crop, being at this time considerably ad- 

 vanced, the loss would be only comparative, and therefore not easily 

 discriminated ; all this tends to involve the subject in much uncer- 

 tainty. 



Mr. George W. Patten, of Delavan, in Tazewell county, at whose 

 house I visited in the hight of the Chinch-bug season, actively co-ope- 

 rated with me in the determination of this and other matters appertain- 

 ing to these destructive insects. Mr. Patten took the pains to visit 

 many of the farmers in his own and the neighboring counties, all of 

 which were badly infested, for the purpose of making inquiries upon 

 this point. He found it to be the general opinion that the bugs had 

 damaged the crop very sensibly. As the whole State has suffered 

 severely the past season, for the want of rain, there was the additional 

 difficulty in this case, of distinguishing between the eff'ects of the 

 drouth and that caused by the bugs. The insects themselves, however, 

 furnished a key to the solution of this difiiculty, by virtue of their gre- 

 garious habits. It appears that they do not scatter themselves indis- 

 criminately over the field, but that they move in large flocks, not 

 unlike their fellow depredators — the blackbirds. Accordingly the corn- 

 fields are found to be damaged in patches, and it was thought to a suffi- 

 cient extent to materially diminish the crop. 



This general diffusion of the chinch bugs over the cornfields after 

 midsummer, taken in connection with the common observation that 

 they remain there till late in the fall, has naturally suggested the ex- 



