115 



The average cost of operation (luring this season for ten fields on 

 different farms in Madison county was collected by Mr. Flint, from 

 whose notes these data are abstracted. The road oil used on these 

 farms averaged 4.4 barrels to the mile of line for a period of fourteen 

 days — a cost of $7 per mile for the fortnight, or fifty cents per mile 

 per day. The labor cost for this period was $8.40 a mile, making a 

 total average expense of $1.10 per day per mile. By the maintenance 

 of such barriers, half a mile of oil-line saved, in several cases, from 

 ten to thirty acres of corn from certain destruction; and in one in- 

 stance sixty acres of corn destroyed by chinch-bugs could easily have 

 been saved by a line less than half a mile in length. 



A more comprehensive statement of the general outcome of the 

 1912 campaign is contained in an article written by Prof. F. "W. Scott, 

 of the department of journalism in the University of Illinois, who 

 made a trip of inspection thru the infested territory in July, 1912, 

 to interview farmers, examine fields, and report his own unbiased 

 observations on the methods and results of the work. ' ' The most sat- 

 isfactory results," he says, ' ' considering both cost and protection, have 

 been obtained from a line made of No. 7 road oil, which, when prop- 

 erly applied, caught all the crawling bugs and was easy to maintain. 

 Those who followed the directions as given in the Entomologist's 

 spring circular of this year [1912] found that the road oil needed re- 

 newal but once in two or three days after the first two applications, 

 and some lines were found to be in perfectly good condition two weeks 

 after the final renewal. Coal-tar lines, on the other hand, had to be 

 renewed once or twice every day, and were of course more costly both 

 in labor and in actual outlay for material. ' ' 



The Final Campaign (1914) 



The lamentable failure of the road oil furnished from Wood River 

 in 1913, together with continued and extraordinary drouth in the 

 chinch-bug area, tended strongly to discourage many who had made a 

 determined fight during two or three years for the salvation of their 

 crops. From April to August, 1913, inclusive, the daily mean tem- 

 peratures aggregated nearly 2000° F. above the normal for this re- 

 gion, and the total rainfall for these same months was deficient about 

 eight and a half inches. Furthermore, the partial and very imper- 

 fect way in which the chinch-bugs had been met and disposed of at 

 harvest-time, had left a vast and increasing horde of them to over- 

 whelm crops the following year ; and the plague seamed to be increas- 

 ing in virulence and destructiveness, notwithstanding all that had been 

 done for its control. There was, consequently, a diminished disposi- 

 tion in 1914 to renew the contest in the counties which had been long- 

 est infested; but there was a considerable territory invaded or seri- 

 ously threatened by the chinch-bug in the spring of this year which 



