﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 33 



bug as not to be worth cutting, the owner of it ought always to set fire 

 to it and burn it up along with its ill-savored inhabitants. Thus, not 

 only will the insect be prevented from migrating on to the adjacent 

 corn-fields, but its future multiplication will be considerably checked. 

 As was clearly shown by Dr. LeBaron, in his second report as 

 State Entomologist of Illinois, much of the efficacy of burning corn 

 stalks will depend on the manner in which it is performed and the 

 time of year of its performance. The approach of Winter finds the 

 bugs scattered everywhere over our corn-fields. But the fields them- 

 selves afford very little Winter shelter, and though standing corn 

 stalks may harbor the bugs more or less throughout the Winter, the 

 fact remains that the majority of the bugs leave them and seek greater 

 shelter and more favorable quarters. Thus, to be eff"ectual, the stalks 

 should be cut and burned before Winter sets in ; or what is preferable, 

 shocks should be made at intervals to attract the bugs. The bugs 

 will then congregate in these shocks and may there be burned at any 

 time during the winter. In this connection I will quote the following 

 inquiry from Mr. J. T. Moulton, Jr., of St. Francois county : 



The most compact and destructive army of chinch buo^s I ever saw, started 

 from sorghum baofasse, which had been used as manure. Might the insects be trapped 

 to any extent worth mentioning, by exposinof heaps of rubbish in conspicuous places 

 in August, ;aid burninof the same in November"::' Would a great proportion of the eggs 

 be found in such heaps ? 



The eggs would of course not be found in such heaps, as they are 

 laid only on the living grain, and principally below the surface of the 

 ground at the crown or on the roots of the plant. But they would 

 nevertheless be eff"ectually destroyed in the manner you suggest, 

 because each female bug sheltering under the bagasse carries within 

 her ovaries a number of undeveloped eggs which, as soon as Spring 

 opens, she is ready to consign to the roots of young grain. The plan 

 suggested by Mr. Moulton is therefore a capital one; and it matters 

 little whether bagasse, corn-stalks, or any other rubbish be used, so 

 lon^ as the heaps are not too large and compact, and are placed and 

 destroyed by fire at the times mentioned. 



Where the custom of allowing cattle to range during the winter 

 in the husked corn-fields, even the few chinch bugs which secrete in 

 these stalks are apt to get killed by the feeding and tramping. 



Rolling — As the mother Chinch Bug has to work her way under 



ground in the spring of the j^ear, in order to get at the roots upon 



which she proposes to lay her eggs, it becomes evident at once that 



the looser the soil is at this time of the year the greater the facilities 



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