100 



oats or com. Their effect will be only to delay and distribute 

 the migration of the brood, possibly resulting also in the starva- 

 tion of the younger individuals. 



15. Encouraging S'pring groivth of volunteer grain on ground 

 to be used for corn, or other late-planted crop. Late spring plow- 

 ing of this ground preparatory to planting will destroy the eggs 

 and young w^ith which it will probably be stocked. 



16. Irrigaiion of the wfested fields, where it is possible, is, of 

 coinse, a complete remedy. 



B. BARRIEKS AGAINST MIGRATION. 



1. Planting strips icith crops not subject to injury by the chinch 

 hug, as described above under No. 14. This, to prevent the 

 speedy migration of insects of the spring generation from fields 

 of wheat and oats at harvest. 



2. Plowing and harrowing at harvest time around infested 

 fields, for a similar purpose. 



3. Ploving one or two deep furrows around the field. "The 

 earth should be thrown away from the protected field, and the 

 furrow not allowed to settle or harden, but be kept friable or 

 dusty by dragging a log or stone or a bundle of brush along it each 

 morning. The philosophy of the plan is that the bugs cannot 

 climb up the loose surface, especially on the perpendicular side. 

 The dragging each morning will kill many, but they should be 

 either trapped or destroyed in pits, or burned by strewing straw 

 each morning on the invading side of the furrow, and burning 

 the same each evening, when a chinch-bug holocaust will result." 

 — Eiley. 



4. Pouring coal tar along the ground just outside the borders 

 of infested fields, as recommended by Dr. LeBaron in his second 

 report. "This method," he says, "has been extensively resorted to 

 the past season (1871) in the central part of the State. I had an 

 opportunity of seeing it put in practice, on a large scale, on the 

 farm of Mr. Joshua Sells, of Bloomington. At the time of my 

 visit, Mr. Sells had adopted the plan of running a stream of tar 

 from the spout of an old tea-kettle directly upon the ground, along 

 the exposed sides of his corn fields. He found that a gallon of 

 tar would extend about ten rods, so that a two-gallon kettle, twice 

 filled, would furnish a strip of tarred ground the whole length of 

 a forty-rod corn field. The tar had to be renewed every other 

 day, and oftener in case of rain. The insects would crowd up to 

 the line in such numbers that in many places they would pile up 

 from half an inch to an inch deep, and could be scraped up by 

 the double handful. But so long as the tar w^as kept fresh, not a 

 l)ug would cross it. They were not prevented from crossing by 

 the adhesive nature of the tar, but by its repulsiveness. The bugs 

 would not touch it. They were destroyed by conducting them into 

 X)erpendicular holes, or by shoveling them in and burying them." 



