48 THE CHINCH BUG. 
after having to all appearances died from its effects. With respect to 
this matter one point is clear, either the determination of this fungus 
is incorrect or else Dr. Cook has made a very serious misstatement 
which ought to be corrected. It is but just to state, however, that 
Professor Forbes, in his eighth report (p. 23), calls attention to the fact 
that it is closely allied to Botrytus, and would be placed by some botan- 
ists under that genus now.* 
First artificial cultivations of Sporotrichium globuliferum — In April, 
1891, Dr. Eoland Thaxter succeeded in cultivating S. globuliferum arti- 
ficially on agar-agar, and a month later Professor Forbes made similar 
cultures on the mixture of corn meal and beef broth, this last being an 
exceedingly valuable discovery, as it revolutionized our method of dis- 
tributing the fungus by securing chinch bugs to be kept for a time 
with those diseased, and then sent out to be scattered over the fields — 
a cumbersome method which was never satisfactory. My own work in 
Ohio was based on material obtained from Professor Forbes, and the 
first year we distributed infected chinch bugs, but after that we used 
the artificial base of beef broth and corn meal, finding the latter far 
more satisfactory to handle, and, so far as I could determine, equally 
effective. 
RESULTS OF FIELD APPLICATIONS IN OHIO. 
In regard to my own experience, it is unnecessary to go into details, 
except to state that, under the most favorable laboratory conditions, I 
was able to kill apparently perfectly healthy chinch bugs within three 
days after bringing them in contact with the Sporotrichium. In the 
fields, during the season of 1895, though upward of 750 packages of dis- 
eased bugs were sent out to farmers, and I received some astonishing 
reports of the results therefrom, yet my own observations led me to 
believe that in many cases these were rather more imaginary than real. 
Over the areas where local showers occurred during the season of 
development of the first brood of young the effect was much more 
satisfactory. But in many cases the request for help came late, and 
soon after the fungus was applied the bugs scattered out over the fields, 
disappearing to the eyes of the ordinary farmer, who, of course, attrib- 
uted all to the effect of the Sporotrichium. In 1890, however, meteoro- 
logical conditions changed, and at last I had the good fortune to secure 
the very opportunity for which I had been waiting for years. All 
through April and up to the 10th of May in southern Ohio there was 
little rain, and even during the remainder of the latter month. the light 
rains hardly sufficed to break the drought, so that there was a perfect 
* Forbes has recorded, in his 19th and 20th reports, the occurrence of Sporotrichium 
globuliferum on a number of additional species of Coleoptera, and also upon lepidop- 
terous larvae, as well as the young of other insects, and it is probable that under 
favorable conditions it will be found to attack almost any species more or less readily, 
though the present autumn we have failed utterly to infect Murgantia histrionica 
even when it was placed among dying chinch bugs in our breeding cages. 
