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C. DIRECT DESTRUCTION. 



1. Dcsiroying i/ie hu(/s by fire in their winter quarters in fall 

 and sprincj. After the first frost in autumn, and before the warm 

 invigorating weather of a well-established spring, the bugs are all 

 concealed under rubbish — most abundant usually around head- 

 lands, under corn stalks, etc., and often, also, among the dead 

 leaves in the borders of woods. Here vast numbers of the bugs 

 may be destroyed by burning (especially where wire fences make 

 this process comparatively easy), and every one of these winter 

 residents killed may mean a hundred thousaLd less in the fields 

 the following summer. While this measure will often pay the 

 individual farmer as a protection of his own crops alone (since 

 these are usually first and worst damaged by the bugs harbored 

 on his own grounds), yet the full measure of possible benefit can 

 only be obtained by general action by the farmers of a neighbor- 

 hood. Burning will be more effective in fall than in spring, 

 because the bugs not destroyed by fire will be exposed to the 

 winter weather by the destruction of their shelter. It is necessary < 

 that the burning should be done when the grass and rubbish ara 

 thoroughly dry, otherwise the fire may run lightly over it without 

 destroying the insects. 



2. Distributing straw, corn stalks, etc., as lures to hiberuation, 

 and tlien burning. By offering inviting winter quarters in and 

 around infested fields, the adults may be readily collected where 

 they can be conveniently and completely destroyed. 



3. Spreading straw and rubbish around ripening grain fields 

 and burning at night. Chinch bugs leaving a field are disposed 

 to shelter themselves at night, and are thus exposed to destruction 

 by this method. 



4. Similar protection may be afforded to corn fields subject to 

 invasion. 



5. Plowing up killed grain and planting to oiher crops. Nearly 

 all the younger bugs will find it impossible to escape from a plowed 

 field, and will perish by starvation. 



6. Flowing under deep, or killing by burning over the ground 

 where grain has been destroyed.. Sometimes a light covering of 

 straw will be necessary for this latter purpose. 



7. Plowing under the outer rows of corn, where these have 

 been invaded from adjacent fields of grain. 



8. The appliccdion of insecticides: gas lime to wheat and corn; 

 the kerosene emulsion to corn, possibly, also, to wheat in early 

 spring; hot water and soap suds to infested stalks of corn. 



As farm help is relatively abundant after harvest, applications 

 of inexpensive insecticides may sometimes be made with profit, 

 especially if their use upon a few of the outer rows of corn shall have 

 the effect to protect the entire field. A simple mechanical mixture 

 of water and three per cenj^of kerosene is deadly to chinch bugs 



