56 
much greater with the torch — especially in the hands of unskilled or 
careless workmen. The price of $io charged for the blast-lamp 
would determine the choice of many, since apparatus may be wholly 
dispensed with in the preparation and application of the kerosene 
emulsion. 
There is an evident use for the gasoline torch in the destruc- 
tion of bugs collecting either in the dusty furrow or along the coal- 
tar line, where these are used as barriers against the movement of 
the chinch-bugs from small grain to corn. By directing the hot 
blast against the insects trapped in the furrow or collecting along 
the tar line on the ground, these could be rapidly killed at small 
expense, and the post-hole traps might thus be dispensed with. 
Care would be necessary, however, to prevent the burning or drying 
of the tar by the flame. 
It also seems quite probable that a fine spray of pure kerosene, 
or even of crude petroleum, might be used to good advantage for the 
destruction of the chinch-bugs on the ground, and perhaps at less 
expense. On the coal-tar line the kerosene might be preferred be- 
cause it would tend to soften the tar and lengthen the period of its 
efficiency as a barrier, and could not dry and harden it as would the 
flame. Opportunity was wanting last season for experiment cover- 
ing these last suggested points, and they must consequently be tested 
at some other time. 
At a later date the blast-larpp was used in the potato field to de- 
stroy the adults and larvae of the common potato-beetle. For this 
operation it was found entirely impracticable. The insects could 
of course be killed, but at an expense of about fifteen hours of labor 
per acre. 
GeneraIv Summary. 
These experiments may be considered as a test of tlie efficiency 
of barriers constructed to arrest the movement of chinch-bugs in 
passing from small grain to corn at harvest-time, under conditions 
unfavorable to success, that is, when the chinch-bugs were not so 
numerous as rapidly to destroy the wheat — compelling their migra- 
tion en masse — and when the weather was neither extremely hot 
nor very dry. The spring and early summer of 1904 proved to be 
unusually wet, and chinch-bugs consequently were not generally 
abundant enough to threaten any great injury to corn. The weather 
also prevented the use of the dusty furrow, most commonly resorted 
to as a barrier to the movements of chinch-bugs, and compelled a 
reliance on the coal-tar line with post-hole traps instead. So far as 
the season permitted a real test of the operation, it was completely 
