PREFACE. 



The articles included in this bulletin relate to insects more or less 

 destructive to cereal and forage crops in the United States. They 

 represent investigations largely completed during the fiscal year 

 1911-12. 



The timothy stem-borer, the subject of Part I, has not during our 

 observations been especially injurious, but is likely to become so 

 should several favorable conditions result in increased abundance. 

 The maize billbug (Part II) and the so-called " curlew bug" (Part IV) 

 are two very closely related insects, the latter being especially 

 destructive in Virginia and the Carolinas, while the former is occa- 

 sionally quite injurious in the West. The paper relating to chinch- 

 bug investigations west of the Mississippi River (Part III) is exceed- 

 ingly timely and serves to make more clear the difference in condi- 

 tions, as regards the chinch bug, between the country west of the 

 Mississippi River and that lying east of it. Parts V, VI, and VII 

 relate to species more or less destructive in the extreme northwestern 

 portion of the United States, a section of the country somewhat pecul- 

 iar in that it differs greatly in insect fauna from more southern and 

 eastern sections of the country. 



All of these papers relate to insects that the farmer must, to a 

 greater or less extent, encounter and control in a successful carrying 

 out oi his business. 



F. M. Webster, 

 In Charge of Cereal and Forage Insect Investigations. 



