BEMEDIAL MEASURES AND CONCLUSIONS. 47 
to the ground, more of the bugs will be killed outright, and the pro- 
tection for those that escape will be more effectively removed. The 
burning should not be done too early, for in that case, unless every 
place where they might hibernate is burned, those bugs that escape 
destruction by the fire will have an opportunity, during the warm 
days that follow, to seek a new shelter. If the burning is delayed 
too long we are apt to have bad weather, which will interfere. 
About the latter part of November or the first of December is usually 
a good time. This is the time when there is a great need of con- 
certed action. It will do little good for a farmer here and there to 
burn, if others do not. No consideration should prevent farmers all 
over the infested area from applying the torch in the fall or early 
winter. 
Systematic burning is not to be recommended every year, for a 
large number of our most useful insects seek the same places to 
hibernate as the chinch bugs, but in years when the chinch bugs are 
apt to prove disastrous the good to be derived from destroying them 
in their winter quarters will by far outweigh the loss of some of our 
beneficial insects. 
Burning in the spring will do little good, unless it should be very 
dry and the burning be done at just the right time. The only good 
that can result from burning in the spring will come from the bugs 
actually destroyed by the burning. If the burning be done too early, 
while the ground is still frozen, or later, when the ground and grass 
is very wet, very few bugs will be killed, but should the ground and 
grass be dry and the burning be accomplished between the time when 
bugs are beginning to come up out of the roots of the grass and 
move about, and before they begin their spring flight, large numbers 
will be killed. The most favorable time in the day for burning, either 
in fall or spring, is from 10 o'clock in the morning to 3 o'clock in 
the afternoon. If the burning is done in the night, as is often the 
case, the bugs will have descended into the roots of the plants again, 
and a smaller number will be killed outright. 
Summer treatment. — After the bugs have become established in 
grain fields in the spring there is no practical way of destroying 
them. The best that a farmer can do is to hope for warm, wet 
weather during and following the hatching season in May and June, 
and prepare to take up the fight when they begin to leave the wheat 
fields. In making preparations for this fight the farmer should pro- 
vide himself with a quantity of coal tar from the gas works, or No. 18 
residuum asphaltum, or crude oil from the oil refinery, and either a 
knapsack spray pump or a spray pump mounted on a barrel. These 
should be provided before harvest begins, for sometimes they can not 
be procured without delay, and if this fight is to prove effective there 
must be no delay at the critical period. 
10944°— Bull. 107—11 -4 
