﻿26 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



In taking no account of the increased acreage since 1870, nor of 

 other cereals than those mentioned ; and in estimating at prices below 

 present market rates, the damage by drouth, independent of Chinch 

 Bug, is fully offset, and the calculation must be below rather than 

 above the mark. I am aware of the difficulty always encountered in 

 endeavoring to get accurate crop reports and estimates; and, indeed, 

 anything like accurate agricultural statistics is almost impossible in 

 this country ; yet the above figures cannot be far out of the way, and 

 will certainly astonish our legislators, and even the farmers of the 

 State, few of whom have any just conception of the vast sum thi& 

 apparently insignificant little bug filches from their pockets. That 

 the sum here given is below the actual loss will be appreciated all 

 the more when I state that the estimated money loss through the 

 Chinch Bug in Illinois, in 186-t, was over seventy-three million dollars. 

 The damage does not even stop here, but brings many serious indi- 

 rect evils in its train. In a number of counties the farmers have not 

 had sufficient grain to fatten their stock, and have been obliged to sell 

 them at ruinous prices ; or, hoping to bring their animals through 

 the winter, and disappointed by its unprecedented and prolonged 

 severity, they have seen their stock die off without power to avoid the 

 calamity. In some counties, and especially south of the Dent county 

 line, the distress has been so great that the Legislature was appealed 

 to for aid in keeping the sufferers from actual starvation, but a bill 

 appropriating $50,000 for this purpose failed to pass both Houses. 



ITS FOOD PLANTS. 



It may be stated as a rule, which admits of very few exceptions, 

 that the Chinch Bug is confined to, and can subsist only on, the juices- 

 of the grasses and cereals; its original food, when the red man ruled 

 the land, being the wild grasses.* All accounts, therefore — and such 

 accounts are coming to me constantly — of chinch bugs injuring grape 

 vines, potatoes, etc., are based on the error of persons who mistake 

 for the genuine article some one or other of the species which will be 

 presently referred to as bogus or false chinch bugs. It is true that 

 Packard, in his "Guide to the Study of Insects," says, in speaking of 

 the Chinch Bug, that "they also attack every description of garden 

 vegetables, attacking principally the buds, terminal shoots, and most 

 succulent growing parts of these and other herbaceous plants;" but 

 this statement is the result of bad compilation, the language, which 

 is quoted from Harris, having reference, in the original, to the Tar- 



* I have found the young around the roots of strawberry plants, under circumstances which lead 

 me to believe that they can feed upon this plant. 



