Summary of Above Table 





1911 



1915 



Decdine 



Cattle Counties 



in 



numbers 



~16,334™ 



23,510 



1,409 



2,881 



percent 



Beef Uninfested 

 Infested 



64,310 

 50,062 



47,976 

 26,552 



25.4 

 46.9 



Dairy Uninfested 

 Infested 



21,971 

 20,592 



20.562 

 17,711 



6.4 



13.8 



Decline in four counties because of chinch-bug injury to crops: Beef cattle. 

 7176 (21.5%); dairy cattle, 1472, (7.4%). 



Value of decline : Beef cattle, $358,800 



Dairy cattle, 88,320 



$447,120 



To arrive at- the effect of a destruction of crops by the ehineh- 

 bug upon live-stock holdings in the infested country. I have brought 

 into comparison the number of beef and dairy cattle in infested and 

 uninfested counties for a period of four years from 1911, when the 

 counties chosen were generally invaded by the chinch-bug, to 1915, 

 when the invasion came to an end. The infested counties selected 

 were Bond, Macoupin, Madison, and Montgomery, with a total area 

 of 2724 square miles, and the uninfested countries were Clark, Coles, 

 Cumberland, Effingham, and Shelby, with a total area of 2629 square 

 miles. From the foregoing table it will be seen that there was a fall- 

 ing off from 1911 to 1915 in the number of cattle of both classes in 

 both groups of counties, but that this decline went much the farthest 

 in the counties infested by the chinch-bug. While the uninfested 

 counties lost 25.4 percent of their beef cattle and 6.4 percent of their 

 dairy cows in these four years, the infested counties lost 46.9 percent 

 of the former and 13.8 percent of the latter — differences of 21.5 per- 

 cent of their beef and 7.4 percent of their dairy animals — all of which 

 may be fairly attributed to the pinch of the emergency caused by the 

 chinch-bug devastation. These ratios give us a loss on this account 

 of 7176 beef cattle and 1472 dairy cows, which, at the average values 

 of stock in the several counties for the year 1915 ($47 for beef and 

 $60 for dairy animals) amounts to $447,120. It is not to be under- 

 stood, of course, that this sum should be added to the losses due to 

 the chinch-bug; it is merely a partial measure of the economic dis- 

 turbance and strain which these losses produced. 



The Progress and Development of the Outbreak 



From its beginning in the southwestern part of Washington county 

 in 1909, the chinch-bug outbreak expanded in 1910 to occupy an irreg- 

 ularly pear-shaped area lying on both sides of the Kaskaskia River 

 and including virtually the whole of the counties of Clinton, Wash- 

 ington, and Perry together with a considerable part of six other coun- 



