﻿36 SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



trapped and destroyed in pits as already described, or burned by 

 strewing straw each morning on tlie invading side of the furrow, and 

 burning the same each evening, when a chinch bug holocaust will 

 result. 



IMPORTAXCE OF WINTER WOllK AXi) COMBIXED ACTION. 



Measures such as these last are, however, but partially preven- 

 tive ; we destroy the enemy only after he has just committed his prin- 

 cipal ravages. Those, therefore, which strike at the right place and 

 l^revent the bug from doing any injury, are by far the most important 

 and valuable ; and I cannot lay too much stress on the importance of 

 AVinter work in burning cornstalks, old boards and all kinds of grass, 

 w^eeds, rubbish and litter around grain fields, and even the leaves in 

 the adjacent woods, in and under all of which the little pest hiber- 

 nates. Next to drowning out the rascals, cremation is undoubtedly 

 the most effectual mode of destruction. Next, let Spring wheat be 

 got in as early as possible, and let it be rolled. The rolling will 

 apply equally well to the culture of Winter wheat, though I would not 

 advise the early Fall planting of this last in sections where it is likely 

 to suffer from Hessian fly, for reasons not pertinent in this connec- 

 tion. Sow thickly, as the more the ground is shaded the less the 

 Chinch Bug likes it. If in late Winter the bugs are known to be 

 numerous so as to bode future injury — and the fact can easily be 

 ascertained by the ill-savored odor they send up from corn-shocks and 

 by their general presence in the wintering places mentioned — it will 

 be well to plant no Spring wheat or barley. In short, just in propor- 

 tion as we adopt an intelligent and cleanly system of culture, just in 

 that proportion will the Chinch Bug become harmless : it is, in a great 

 part, and in its more injurious aspects, a result of slovenly husbandry, 

 and will lose its threatening character in the more western States, as 

 it has in those to the east of us, just as fast as more careful and intel- 

 ligent husbandry becomes the fashion. Combined effort is, also, most 

 important in this connection, and it is by producing unity of action 

 in such cases that the granges can demonstrate, in no small degree, 

 the good that is to flow from organization. While the farmers were 

 uncombined they were as weak as a rope of sand in matters requiring 

 this combined efi"ort, but with the powerful organization now existing 

 among them, they will be better able to cope with their foes of what- 

 ever nature.. 



Every one who has traveled over our own State, must have been 

 struck with the manner in which some fields were rendered almost 

 worthless by this insect; while others in the immediate vicinity, and 



