516 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
This information is communicated to me by Mr. Albert Bur¬ 
net, of Mercer county, Ill., who further states, that in that vicin¬ 
ity the chinch bug was the most numerous last year (1855) that it 
has ever been known. Having attended a reaping machine through 
the season of harvest, he says it was noticed in a number of 
instances, that these insects were most numerous upon the south 
and east sides of the fields. This is probably owing to these 
parts of the field being more warm and dry, from their greater 
exposure to the sun. And where a low damp spot occurs in a 
field, the grain or corn is there wholly exempt from injury, 
although all the rest of the field may be badly alfected. He 
says he first saw the inseot in 1850, at which time it was very 
abundant. The two following years it was but little noticed, 
but the three dry summers which have now occurred have 
increased it prodigiously. 
William Patten, of Sandwich, De Kalb county, informs me that 
it was in 1850 that it was first noticed in his neighborhood, and 
that last summer it was more destructive than it had ever been 
before, the last sowed wheat being greatly injured by it in many 
fields. The early wheat in Illinois, as in Carolina, is ripened 
before the bugs become so numerous as to injure it. 
Charles Hastings of La Salle, tells me the chinch bug had not 
been noticed in his vicinity until the year 1854, and it then did 
but little damage, but the following year many fields were much 
injured, and some were so much damaged that they were not 
harvested. 
Edward McCollister of Juliet, tells me it has been less destruc¬ 
tive the present year (1856) than it was last, though it has 
everywhere been quite a serious evil this season. Wheat from 
fields which have been infested by the chinch bug is readily dis¬ 
tinguished by the grain dealers, the kernels not being plump 
and full, but more or less shrivelled and light of weight. These 
insects seldom if ever injure the first crop upon newly broken 
prairie. A strip of greater or less width upon one of the sides 
of a field is sometimes destroyed in autumn, when the plants are 
but a few inches high. Entering the field upon the side adjacent 
to an old wheat field, they advance with the regularity of an 
aymy, farther and farther, killing every leaf and spear as they 
