12 THE WHITE-FUNGUS DISEASE IN KANSAS. 
In Nebraska the fungus was used extensively in 1893, 1894, and 
1901, but in the outbreaks of 1909 and 1910 the fungus was not recom- 
mended. To those asking for the fungus a circular was sent, which 
says in part: 
It seems that the usefulness of this fungus disease as a method of destroy- 
ing chinch bugs has been greatly overestimated by the farmers, since the ex- 
periments with it show that it spreads only when the weather conditions are 
just right — that is, when the temperature is somewhere between 70° and 80° F., 
and the air is very humid, and when bugs are massed in sufficient numbers 
that they come in contact with each other. When such conditions exist, the 
disease spreads rapidly and destroys the bugs very effectively, but under other 
conditions, especially in dry weather, the disease is quite ineffective. It is be- 
cause of this extreme unreliability of the chinch-bug fungus disease, and its 
failure to spread when most sorely needed, that we have come to regard it as 
more of a detriment than a benefit in many cases, since it causes the farmer to 
place confidence in an unsafe measure to the neglect of more practical, though 
also more laborious, means of control. 
The fungus was also used in Missouri, but has been discarded. 
Prof. J. M. Stedman a says : 
A great many people send in to this office in the spring of the year for the 
chinch-bug disease, with the idea of scattering this disease about the fields of 
wheat and killing the chinch bugs infesting them. It is a fact that under cer- 
tain climatic conditions this chinch-bug disease * * * will kill a great 
number of chinch bugs. But from seven years' experience with this disease in 
the wheat fields throughout the State of Missouri I am firmly convinced that 
the artificial use of this disease by the farmers of Missouri does very little, if 
any, good. * * * In the first place the chinch-bug disease is a natural one, 
found in nature, and is not an artificial one. * * * 
* * * If the chinch bugs are in large numbers and the weather is hot and 
very moist, these spores will germinate on the bugs, and the fungus plant will 
kill them in great numbers. But if the weather is hot and dry, or too cool, 
although it may be moist enough, then the spores will not germinate, and no 
agriculturist has the power to bring about the proper conditions in his wheat or 
cornfield that will enable them to germinate. * * * 
* * * I wish to say that it is very doubtful whether there is a wheat field 
or a cornfield in Missouri that does not naturally contain spores of this disease. 
I have been impressed with this fact every summer, because almost invariably, 
when the person applying for the chinch-bug disease sends to this office living 
chinch bugs that have been placed, as they should be, in a tin box containing 
no dirt, but some green vegetable matter, as for instance, pieces of green corn, 
wheat, or grass, and the box closed up as it should be, perfectly tight, thereby 
generating moisture in the box from these green vegetables, that by the time 
these bugs reach me the box contains more diseased fungus-covered bugs than 
we return ; thus showing that the spores were already there in his field. 
* * * Knowing these facts, I can do no other than to conscientiously advise 
the farmers of Missouri not to trouble themselves with obtaining and scattering 
this disease about their fields, but to rely entirely, as they will ultimately have 
to do, upon nature to bring about the proper climatic conditions for the de- 
velopment of this disease in their fields. 
° Bulletin No. 51, Agr. Exp. Sta., University of Missouri, July, 1902. 
