﻿32 SEVENTH ANNUAL BEPORT 



vent its subsequent injuries. In the article on the Rocky Mountain 

 Locust, I may have something more to say on this matter of irriga- 

 tion. We cannot, at the critical moment, expect much aid from its 

 natural enemies, for these are few, and attack it mostly in the winter 

 time. We must, therefore, in our warfare with this pest, depend 

 mainly on preventive measures where irrigation is impossible. 



PKEVENTIYE MEASURES. 



It has been repeatedly shown in these pages, that in no depart- 

 ment of science does the old proverb, "prevention is better than 

 cure," apply with such force as in economic entomology; for there 

 are hosts of insects whose depredations may be averted with the 

 utmost ease, when we understand their weak points and attack them 

 at the proper place or time. Though we are powerless before the 

 Chinch Bug at the time it commits the greatest injury, and attracts 

 most attention, yet I shall endeavor to show that it may, for all prac- 

 tical purposes, be outflanked by judicious husbandry and proper pre- 

 cautionary steps. 



Burning — It has long been noticed that the Chinch Bug com- 

 mences its ravages in the Spring from the edges of a piece of grain, 

 or occasionally from one or more small patches, scattered at random 

 in the more central portions of it, and usually dryer than the rest of 

 the field. From these particular parts it subsequently spreads by de- 

 grees over the whole field, multiplying as it goes, and finally taking 

 the entire crop unless checked up by seasonable rains. In newly 

 broken land, where the fences are new, and consequently no old stuff 

 has had time to accumulate along them, the Chinch Bug is seldom 

 heard of. These facts indicate that the mother insects must very gen- 

 erally pass the winter in the old dead stuff" that usually gathers along 

 fences. Hence, by way of precaution, it is advisable, whenever possi- 

 ble, to burn up such stuff" in the winter, or early in the spring, and 

 particularly to rake together and burn up the old corn stalks in the 

 fall of the year, instead of plowing them in, or allowing them, as is 

 often done, to lie littering about on some piece of waste ground. 

 Agriculturally speaking, this may not be the best way of enriching 

 the soil ; but it is better to lose the manure contained in the corn 

 stalks than to have one's crop destroyed by insects. Whenever such 

 small infected patches in a grain field are noticed early in the season, 

 the rest of the field may often be saved by carting dry straw on to 

 them, and burning the straw on the spot. Chinch Bugs, green wheat 

 and all ; and this will be still easier to do when the bugs start along 

 the edge of the field. If, as frequently happens, a piece of small 

 grain is found about harvest time to be so badly shrunken up by the 



