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Sugar-cane, used for green teed also (it sprouts out again as often as it is cut until 

 killed by frost). As the rye was getting ripe, so that the numerous Chinch Bugs could 

 not find any more nourishment in the same, they turned into the adjacent corn field, 

 and on the other side into said Texas sugar-cane. They were in such numbers that 

 they would soon have killed off both crops. 



I now set in and tried insect-powder, coal-oil, and other insecticides on them, and 

 being convinced that no poison could affect them, since the whole bug family suck 

 their meals through a bill, I came to the conclusion to kill them with hot water. Since 

 the crops would be killed by the insects anyway, a trial would not hurt, but at the 

 same time I anticipated that neither the corn nor the cane would be hurt by the hot 

 water christening, from the fact that the stems of these plants are enveloped in so 

 many leaves that the insects would surely all be killed before the heat reached the 

 tender parts. So I poured boiling-hot water upon the lower parts of the corn infested 

 with the Chinch Bug, which were black with them, and killed them outright, and 

 with a garden sprinkling-can killed them in the same way on the Texas cane. The 

 result was that the corn and cane were both saved. The corn did not suffer any by 

 the process, and the cane had only some of its outer leaves burned, and grew on all 

 summer. Next year I recommended the same process to some friends who expected 

 to lose their corn by Chinch Bugs. They set out kettles in the fields and saved their 

 corn in the same way, and informed -me that the hot water only made the corn grow 

 so much faster, and did not hurt it in the least. I tried steam afterwards, and found 

 it to be as good as, if not better than, hot water. A narrow gauged steam-boiler 

 might be used therefor with the proper pipes and hose, and jets let on the corn-stalks 

 when passing through the rows, and the bugs killed in this waj^ without injuring the 

 corn in the least. 



As the Chinch Bug migrates from the wheat or rye fields iuto the corn or cane, my 

 advice is not to let them come into the latter, but kill them in the stubble or even be- 

 fore the wheat or rye is cut ; the farmer might run his boiler along the wheat or rye 

 fields adjacent to a corn or cane field and let jets of steam into the former, killing the 

 insects before they commence to migrate, and as soon as the wheat or rye is cut set 

 your boiler at work, and with proper hose or perforated pipes run over your whole 

 wheat and rye stubbie, killing every Chinch Bug on your stubble and at the same time 

 all the young Grasshoppers, which are then just emerged from their eggs to commence 

 their depredations. Steam may exterminate not only Chinch-bugs, but also Army 

 Worms and Cabbage worms. If it is an established fact that Chinch Bugs can be 

 killed by steam on the stubble of each farmer, why not i)ass laws that each farmer 

 is responsible for the damage of his Chinch Bugs to his neighbors? If a meadow 

 is infested with the Army Worms, our present plan is to make ditches around the 

 infested field and prevent them from marching further, which forces them to turn 

 into chrysalids on the field where they started from, and set loose the millers or 

 butterflies again upon the world, to lay new eggs of destruction for the next year. 

 But if my plan of using steam-boilers on wheels for the destruction of insects were 

 introduced it would be an easy matter to run such a steaming machine over any 

 meadow infested with Army Worms and kill them outright. In like manner a light 

 steamer with perforated pipes set high horizontally might be used to kill the cater- 

 pillars OQ cabbage, since the latter can stand a much greater heat than the caterpillars 

 can. Surely in parts of our country where the Grasshoppers do great injury they 

 might be killed by steam when young. — [George C. Bunseu, West Belleville, 111., 

 November 8, 1888. 



Reply. — * * *" The use of hot water against these insects is very old. You will 

 find it referred to in my Reports on the Insects of Missouri, and briefly mentioned in 

 the Annual Report of this Department for 18S7, page 80. Your proposed application 

 of steam by means of narrow-gauge steam-boiler is simply a modification of the old 



