92 



"In estimating probabilities of continued damage we must take 

 account of the following facts:" Two successive years of chincli- 

 bug outbreak have seldom occurred in the same territory; the 

 breeding of the chinch bug has been cut short by a scarcity of 

 food, their injuries and the drouth having nearly ruined the corn; 

 there is a chance for a variable winter and a wet spring or even 

 summer, dry weather having prevailed to a great extent in South- 

 ern Illinois for several years; disease may yet prevail, although 

 there is no immediate promise; there is a sufficient number of 

 bugs maturing, or about to mature, to overwhelm the country they 

 now occupy and to greatly extend their area of devastation should 

 the greater part of them live till spring and breed; and, conse- 

 quently, the weather is practically the d3termining factor for the 

 next year. Sufficient prospect of injury next year to make reme- 

 dial and preventive measures imperative, and the following are 

 recommended: (1) abandonment of small grain for a year where 

 corn is principal crop, to starve out first brood; (2) abandonment 

 of corn for a year where small grains are the principal crop, to 

 cut short food of midsummer brood; (3) destruction in winter 

 quarters; (4) heavy manuring; (5) heavy seeding; (6) sowing clo- 

 ver in wheat fields; (7) sowing Hungarian grass as lure; (8) 

 "strewing powdered lime around edges of corn fields to prevent 

 entrance of bugs on foot" — practiced successfully in one instance 

 in Washington county; (9) plowing furrows around fields or mak- 

 ing belt of coal-tar, irrigating infested fields, and killing bugs 

 with diluted kerosene emulsion, — these last, "measures of little 

 promise or considerable expense" which may sometimes be use- 

 ful. The artificial cultivation and spread of the germs of the con- 

 tagious diseases of these insects is as yet only a theoretical remedy. 

 Some of the foregoing measures may be taken to advantage by 

 the individual farmer; others are of little or no avail unless action 

 is concerted. 



[WEto, Clarence M. ] — Southern Illinois Notes. (Prairie Farmer, 

 Oct. '2, 1886.) 



Mention of great damage to farm crops in Southern Illinois by 

 chinch bugs and drouth. 



Baldwin, Elmer, and Forbes, S. A. — Chinch Bugs and Spring 

 Wheat. (Prairie Farmer, Oct. 9, 188().) 

 Mr. Baldwin contends that spring wheat is the favorite breed- 

 ing crop of the chinch bug, "and is responsible for its first intro- 

 duction and raj)id increase in ovei^-y locality. This may not be 

 true of every lo(;ality, but I know it is of this" []ja Salle Co., 

 Ill ). Prof. Forbids calls attention to outbriMiks in Southern Illi- 

 nois, when! no spring wheat is grown, and records instances of its 

 ])r(;oding freely and successfully in early oats and corn. He adds 

 that as it rarely occurs in destructive numbers for more than one 

 or two years in the same locality, whatever the agricuiltural prac- 

 tice, any general m( manure is likely to receive more credit tlian is 

 due to it. 



