64 Game Survey of the North Central States 



in the fall and removing them from the fields. The prevalent practice as far 

 east as Indiana (see Map 8) is to leave cornstalks standing over winter, either 

 after husking the corn in late fall, or for the purpose of consumption in situ by 

 livestock during the winter. In either event the standing stalks furnish winter 

 cover and feed for quail and other game. On thousands of farms the remaining 

 brush and weed coverts would be insufficient for wintering game, were they not 

 supplemented by standing corn. 



The corn borer threatens to change this agricultural custom. The only 

 vulnerable point in the life cycle of the corn borer is its habit of wintering in the 

 corn stalks. Agricultural authorities believe that plowing under or consuming 

 corn stalks is the only feasible means of controlling the corn borer. The crux of 

 the question is whether the stalks will have to be plowed under or consumed in 

 the fall, or whether it will suffice to do this by spring. Millions of acres of game 

 range would go out of production if the cornfields were left bare during the 

 winter. The ultimate disposition of this question may injure cornbelt game to a 

 greater extent than the entire conservation movement has benefitted it to date. 

 Yet that movement does not so far concern itself with these basic questions of 

 game environment. 



One of the insect pests which has already resulted in the wholesale clearance 

 of quail coverts is the chinch bug. The danger zone lies in a belt about five 

 counties wide in the latitude of central Illinois, and extends eastward and west 

 ward through the other States. Here again the campaign for clearance of coverts 

 which might harbor chinch bugs has tended to be indiscriminate as between species 

 of cover plants, and has not weighed bird harborage against chinch bug harbor- 

 age in arriving at a scheme of farm management. The exact effect of game 

 birds in controlling chinch bugs appears to be still in doubt, except in the case 

 of the pinnated grouse, which is known to consume them in quantities. Un- 

 fortunately this species is too rare to have a measurable effect. 



The Osage Hedge. The early settlers on the cornbelt prairies planted an 

 enormous mileage of osage orange hedges for the purpose of fencing their fields. 

 This wholesale hedging must have begun well before I860, since Bogardus in 

 la/4 speaks of them as "now full grown." 



There were two reasons for these plantings. First, osage hedges cost 

 nothing but labor, the necessary cuttings or "hedgeapples" being easily procured 

 from some neighbor's hedge. Dropping either into a plowed furrow resulted in 

 a fence. Not a cent of cash was necessary. 



Barbed wire, on the other hand, cost cash. 



-Second, the hedges, when allowed to grow up, yielded extremely durable 

 fence posts. 



Hedges were planted more widely on prairies than on cleared woodlands 

 because of the scarcity of other fence post timber. Even on cleared farms, how- 

 ever, many hedges were planted because of the scarcity of cash for wire. 



