SOME INSECT ENEMIES OF CORN 
9 
surface of the soil in which it changes to a brownish or reddish brown pupa. A few 
weeks later it changes to a grayish or brownish night-flying moth. 
Methods of Control 
Grass lands intended for corn should be plowed in midsummer or early fall. 
The earlier the plowing is done the fewer will be the eggs in the soil. Pigs pas- 
tured on such lands will root out and destroy many cutworms. 
The use of poison bait a few days after planting is beneficial. The kind recom- 
mended for the control of grasshoppers may be used, with or without the fruit 
flavoring. It should be applied in the evening so that it will be moist when the 
cutworms feed at dusk. 
BILL-BUGS 
Corn bill-bugs are snout beetles. The largest of our species are clay-colored 
bugs about five-eighths of an inch long, while the smaller species are about one- 
fourth of an inch long and black. They often kill young corn, by puncturing the 
stem of the plant with the beak and eating its inner tissue. 
Where bill-bugs are working in a cornfield many of the leaves have circular or 
oblong holes running in rows across the blade. Each row is the result of a single 
puncture made by the beetle when the leaves were rolled together in the plant. 
The injury may be very little, or it may be severe enough to cause a total loss of 
the crop over areas of several acres. In 1912 one Minnesota cornfield of twenty 
acres was destroyed by bill-bugs. 
Life History 
- The beetles hibernate on the ground under rubbish or in other protected places 
and in the spring lay their eggs in or about the roots of rushes, sedges, or grass plants, 
which furnish food for the larvae. The larva is a thick, white, footless grub with a 
hard brown or blackish head. 
If swampy land containing sedges, rushes, or large grass plants is plowed up 
in the spring and planted to corn the crop is almost certain to be attacked by the 
swamp-inhabiting species. If the vegetation is not kept down the first season by 
thoro cultivation, the injury will be repeated the second year. If timothy meadows 
of several years’ standing are plowed in the spring and planted to corn there is danger 
of attack by the smaller species of bill-bugs, which inhabit grass lands. 
Methods of Control 
Late summer or early fall plowing of grass lands or recently cleared swamp 
lands intended for corn the following year will probably prevent a great amount of 
injury from bill-bugs. It would be safer, however, for the first year to plant some 
crop not attacked by bill-bugs, as flax or potatoes or garden truck. The burning 
over of grass and swamp lands infested with the beetles is also beneficial. 
GRASSHOPPERS 
Corn is sometimes injured by grasshoppers which come into the field from 
grass lands near by. They usually begin in the outer rows, eating the silks and 
kernels from the tip of the ear, the leaves, and sometimes even the husk of the 
young ear. 
Methods of Control 
The time to kill grasshoppers is in the spring, while they are without wings and 
before they have left the grass lands. 
