36 



J[ohnson], B. F. — [Letters from Champaign County, Illinois, in 

 Cultivator and Country Gentleman.] 



June 1, 1871, v. 36, p. 340. "The chinch bug, which is not seen 

 on the calcareous soils south of latitude 39°, has clone a great 

 deal of damage north of that parallel; but the bugs are now be- 

 lieved to be migrating, and though they do not go in clouds and 

 darken the air like locusts in Algeria and grasshoppers in Utah, 

 they are flying in countless numbers in a southwesterly direction." 

 J«une 8, 1871, p. 364. "The chinch bugs are taking the oats." 

 Sept. 7, 1871, p. 564. Mentions presence of drouth and chinch 

 bugs in large portions of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minne- 

 sota, which are causing immense loss. In attacking corn, bugs 

 begin at "brace roots" and go up, sucking sap as they go. Drouth 

 and chinch bugs "hunt in couples." Sept. 21, 1871, p. 597. Chinch 

 bugs are still [Sept. 14] at work in Champaign county. 



Cultivator and Country Gentleman, June 8, 1871, v. 36, p. 361. 

 An Insect Year. 



Scores of complaints of chinch bugs come from Illinois and 

 Iowa, and some from other sections." 



Prairie FaRxAier, July 7, 1871. 



From Livingston Co, June 28, 1871, a correspondent reports 

 total ruin to spring wheat by chinch bug, and great damage to 

 corn and oats. Probably not one tenth of the oats in the county 

 will be harvested, while much of the corn has been killed by the 

 bugs, and scarcely a piece can be found which is not more or 

 less injured. 



[LeBaron, Wm. ] —Visit to McLean and Tazewell Counties. The 

 Chinch Bugs. (Prairie Farmer, Aug. 5, 1871.) 



Records his personal observation of the "desolated fields" and 

 "blasted harvest" of the above-named counties, where, he says, 

 "they raise chinch bugs instead of spring wheat." Speaks of an 

 irregular periodicity in the appearance and disappearance of the 

 insect, and of the ominous warnings they give of their advent one 

 or two years before their onslaught, if one carefully notes their 

 history. Says that unmistakable warning was given in 1870 of 

 the prevalence of the bugs this season [1871]. They were also 

 noticed during the winter by their odor, as the shocks of corn 

 were fed, and were flying abundantly early in spring. These were 

 harbingers of the hosts "which have devastated the flelds of spring 

 wheat and barley all tlirough the central counties of Illinois, and 

 also in parts of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and the southern bor- 

 der of Nebraska." Believes that by abandoning the raising of 

 spring wheat and l)arloy (if driven to the necessity) we can get rid 

 of the chinch bug, — although he notes rare instances where tho 

 insect seems to have bi-ed in oats. 



