THE CHINCH-BUG OUTBREAK OF 1910 TO 1915 



By STEPHEN A. FORBES, State Entomologist 



The chinch-bug uprising of 1910-15 in Illinois was a striking ex- 

 ample of the power of an injurious insect to avail itself of temporarily 

 favorable conditions, and, breaking thru the ordinary checks upon its 

 increase, to make profitable agriculture impossible for a term of years, 

 and even to bring financial distress and ruin upon large numbers of 

 those least able to bear unusual burdens. Making its first appearance 

 in the fall of 1909 in a few fields of Washington county, in the south- 

 western part of the state, this outbreak increased rapidly year by 

 year, spread steadily from that center with no apparent reinforcement 

 from any outside territory, rose in 1914 to a climax of destructive- 

 ness in the central part of the then infested area, and virtually dis- 

 appeared, with a rapidity amounting to collapse, in the summer of 

 1915. During its widest development in the fall of 1914 it occupied in 

 destructive or dangerous numbers the whole of twenty-five counties, 

 and a part of thirteen others. Its injuries to corn alone that year, 

 as shown by statistics of crop production and price to be given in 

 detail on another page, amounted to $5,045,000 at the market pi^ice 

 of that fall; and those to wheat and oats to $1,400,000 more. This 

 brings the total estimated crop injury for that year to $6,400,000. 

 1914 was, however, but one of five years of heavy loss in that part of 

 Illinois, and it is certain that the total for the other four years was 

 at least equal to that for this year alone. We may consequently fix 

 upon a loss of $13,000,000 as the lowest reasonable estimate for the 

 whole period. 



Divided equally among the twenty-six counties injuriously in- 

 fested at some time during the outbreak, this average of $500,000 per 

 county might not have been felt as very oppressive ; and if it had been 

 equally distributed, like a well-levied tax, over the farms of each 

 county according to their values, it might have been borne without 

 serious distress. It was, however, so unequally divided, both locally 

 and personally, that it brought financial ruin to many tenant farm- 

 ers, seriously embarrassed many owners of farms, led to a heavy sac- 

 rifice of stock and other readily salable property, and compelled the 

 purchase by farmers of hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of 

 grain and hay, necessary to maintain their working animals in the 

 presence of the crop failure. The further economic consequences of 

 this disaster are being investigated in detail by a member of the de- 

 partment of economics in the University of Illinois. 



For the first time in the history of agriculture in this state a per- 

 sistent fight against the chinch-bug was made in several parts of the 

 area of infestation, largely by the use of organized measures for the 

 destruction of the spring generation of the bugs at harvest-time. It 



