STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
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proceed, until a frosty night occurs, when their operations 
instantly cease. • 
Dr. Marshall of Keithsburg, informs me that in destroyed 
patches individual stalks sometimes occur, which have been 
missed by them. These remain green and thrifty, and their 
heads become well filled, when all around is bleached and with¬ 
ered. It is commonly a strip, two, three or even five or ten 
rods in width upon one of the sides of a field, which is whitened 
and destroyed by them, but in some instances they enter a field 
in a narrow strip, and then spread out into a large patch. 
D. Williams of Geneva, Wisconsin, says the chinch bug made 
its advent there in 1854, coming apparently from the south, 
its nearest approach the year before being thirty miles south. 
In a letter written July 9th, 1855, he says it had that year caused 
considerable damage, especially in spring wheat, but a heavy 
rain two weeks before had checked its ravages. 
The first appearance of the chinch bug at a particular locality 
and its progress from year to year, is related with more exact¬ 
ness than I have elsewhere seen, in a communication to the 
Country Gentleman (vol. v, p. 396) from E. C. Smith of Christy’s 
Prairie, la., from which the following extracts, containing further 
information upon the economy and destructiveness of this insect 
are taken. It is dated May 20th, 1855, before the extent of the 
depredations of the bug that year could be fully known, and 
was accompanied with specimens and a request for information 
as to the correct name of the insect, it being termed the “corn fly” 
in that neighborhood. Mr. Smith says:— 
“The first time they were ever observed in this vicinity, so far 
as I have been able to ascertain, was nine years ago last summer. 
They were seen in a cornfield, about three miles from this place. 
They appeared to come from the stubble of a wheat field that 
bordered on the corn. They did but little damage. A few suc¬ 
cessive days of rainy weather put a stop to their progress, and 
nothing more was seen of them, that season. Two years later, 
they appeared on the farm of one of my neighbors, about half a 
mile distant. They came apparently, as before, from wheat 
stubble, though none had been observed in the wheat while 
growing; and they began on that part of the corn adjacent to it. 
