•10 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT 01 AGRICULTURE, 1049 
infestations were on range farremoved from cultivated lands. Dam- 
age to pasture and range was about LO percent on about 230,000 acres. 
In L948 i! was expected only a few area- in two or possibly three 
States would need control By June 25 Bureau crews had spread 1 l."» 
tons of bait on 55,300 acres in Oregon and Washington, and cooperators 
had spread an additional 12 tons on \.~\~ acres. 
Chinch Bags and Cutworms Require Little Control 
Chinch bug populations cont Inued to be low in the ( Central and Mid- 
western States. Control was required on only a few scattered farms in 
20 count ies in Missouri and ( Oklahoma, where 9,300 gallons of federally 
provided creosote oil were used to maintain barriers for the protection 
of their crops in 1948. 
A survey during the fall and early winter of L948 in L53 counties of 
7 States indicated that, unless weather condition- were unusually 
favorable for the bugs the following spring and summer, an outbreak 
would not be probable. By late June L949 there were -till no indica- 
tion- 1 1 uit chinch bugs won Id be a problem in other than a few localities. 
Cutworm infestations were of concern to fanner- during 1948 only 
in limited area- of a few States. Farmer.- in 'J 1 counties of 6 States 
used bait provided by the Federal Government to control the bugs. 
About 1 ( » tons of bait were spread on 6,725 acres of crop- infested with 
bait-controllable worm-, mainly the arniyworm and army cutworm. 
During the spring of 1949 infestations requiring farmer-' atte 
developed in scattered areas of Arkansas, Colorado. Kansas, Minne- 
sota, Missouri, Oklahoma. Oregon, South Dakota. Texas, and Wy- 
oming. 
Cotton Ba'js Made Insectproof 
A method of treating cotton bags to keep insects out of flour or other 
milled cereal- packed in them has been developed in cooperation with 
the Bureau of Agricultural and [ndustrial Chemistry and commercial 
insecticide and cotton-bag manufacturers. The investigations were 
financed in part by fund- authorized under the Research and Market- 
ing A<a of 1946. 'The in-ect repellent, which consists of pyrethrins or 
a mixture of pyrethrins with piperony] butoxide, can be applied to tin 
warp yarn in the usual sizing t reatment before t he cloth i- woven or to 
the cloth by the padding method before the bags are made. The ap- 
pearance of the treated fabric i- not materially changed, a slight odor 
imparted by the chemicals is not objectionable, and baking tests con- 
ducted :it Kansas State ( College indicate that the quality of flour stored 
in t reated bags is not a fleeted. 
The efficiency of the treatment was tested by exposing -mall ban-, 
both treated and untreated, containing insect free flour \'<>v long peri- 
od- in ;i room heavily populated with confused flour beetles, eaaelles, 
Mediterranean flour moth-, lesser grain borers, and other in 
that arc able to penetrate or deposit their eggs through the fabric of 
untreated bags. Verj leu or no insects penetrated t reated bags during 
