INSECTS AFFECTING GRAINS, GRASSES, FORAGE 93 



barrel diluted, and a man will spray five acres per day, using a 

 barrel per acre. Whale-oil soap, one-half pound to the gallon of 

 water, has proven equally effective and cost $1.12 per barrel. 



A blast torch, for which an attachment is furnished with 

 many of the compressed-air sprayers, may be used to advantage 

 for destroying the .bugs in a dust furrow .or along the tar line, 

 or a spray of pure kerosene or crude petroleum may be used for 

 the same purpose. 



Extensive experiments have been made in Illinois and Kansas 

 with the use of the muscardine fungus against the chinch-bug. 

 Though occasionally the results seem to be profitable, and though 

 it is undoubtedly effective in wet seasons and it may be well 

 to distribute the fungus to places where it does not occur so 

 that it may reduce the numbers of the bugs in wet seasons, 

 it seems to be of very little value in dry seasons, when the 

 injury is worst, and cannot be relied upon to check the increase 

 of the pest when used according to the methods so far devised. 



When chinch-bugs become abundant and their migration to 

 corn seems imminent, the farmer should prepare to devote himself 

 and as many hands as necessary to fighting them until their 

 advance is checked, for delay will mean ruin, while the prompt 

 use of the above methods will save the corn crop. 



Grasshoppers or Locusts * 



Plagues of destructive locusts or what we Americans call 

 grasshoppers have been recorded since the dawn of history. 

 In America the worst devastation was done by the flights of 

 the Rocky Mountain or Migratory Locust (Melanoplus spretus 

 Thos.), which swooped down upon the States of the western 

 part of the Mississippi Valley in the years 1873 to 1876 in destruc- 

 tive clouds. 



Concerning their recent .distribution, numbers, and destruc- 

 tiveness, Mr. W. D. Hunter reported after the season of 1897: 

 " There was, this .season, a general activity of this species through- 

 out the 'permanent breeding region greater than at any time in 

 * Various species of the family Acrididce. 



