118 



headlands, thickets, borders of woods, etc. Wire fences or a 

 stock law making fences generally needless would facilitate this 

 measure. With regard to the second period we can only prepare 

 for the attack. "We may refrain, as far as possible, from raising 

 the favorite crops of the chinch bug — especially wheat, barley, 

 and rye — with the double advantage of thus subjecting ourselves 

 to little or no immediate injury, and of reducing the numbers 

 of the bugs that infest one's premises later." In regard 

 to wheat, however, the weight of much carefully accumulated 

 evidence goes to show that while this is an indispensable pre- 

 ventive measure, it will not, when bugs are present in large 

 numbers, greatly reduce them, since, not finding wheat or rye, 

 they will breed elsewhere. In Southern Illinois, under existing 

 circumstances, this expedient must not be relied on to the exclusion 

 of more active measures. (3) Raise clover generally as forage 

 plant when chinch-bug injury is imminent, as we have learned 

 here that the grasses cannot then be relied upon for either meadow 

 or pasture. (3) Use every means to increase and maintain the 

 fertility of the soil, especially relying on the direct application of 

 fertilizers to crops attacked or liable to injury. By this means 

 have raised first-class crops of wheat, though ground was "enor- 

 mously infested" by chinch bugs in the beginning of the season. 

 (4) Clover or flax may be sown on wheat in spring. (5) JSow 

 wheat early as a measure against chinch-bug injury — though this will 

 of course increase the liability to damage by the Hessian fly. 

 (6) Sowing favorite food plants as lures or decoys is advised as an 

 experiment. As bugs fly abroad in spring they will be almost 

 certainly attracted to such growth for the deposition of their eggs, 

 and may be destroyed there, with the young, by deep plowing and 

 rolling, late in May or early in June. Later in the season the same 

 ground might be sowed to millet or Hungarian, and the second 

 generation be destroyed similarly to the first. Next, as to meas- 

 ures suited to the third critical period,— the time of the midsum- 

 mer migration. (1) The bugs may be almost certainly detained 

 where they originated, or killed as they attempt to escape, by a 

 narrow belt of coal-tar, mixed with ten per cent, of oil or grease, 

 poured into a furrow extending around the field and cleared of 

 loose earth, or placed on a continuous belt of boards. This mixture 

 will need to be renewed once in three or four days, and for five 

 applications along a line of forty rods will cost between SI. 50 and 

 82.00. The bugs which accumulate along the belt may be destroyed 

 by liot water, kerosene, or some mechanical method. Fields of 

 corn may be protected against tlio first and worst invasion by such 

 a barrier on th(? side next grain fic^lds. (2) Such as enter the 

 corn notwithstanding, may be kilh^l there with kerosene emulsion. 

 According to fioma experiments made in Iowa the cost of appli- 

 cation is about seventy cents per acre. (3) The fertilization of 

 cf)rn in the hill has proven a considerable defence. (4) Early 

 ripening varieties are of advantage, as they mature in advance of 

 injury l)y the se(!ond generation of bugs. "Other measures are 

 a separation of crops liable to attack, plowing under infested 



