49 
10,000,000 bushels of wheat, upwards of 13,300,000 bushels of oats, 
md 1,000,000 bushels of barley. The proportion of these crops de¬ 
stroyed by Chinch-bugs, we have put at three-quarters of the wheat, 
me-half of the barley, and one-quarter of the oats. This will give 
is the amounts actually destroyed by these insects, 7,500,000 bushels 
)f wheat, 500,000 bushels of barley, and in round numbers, 3,300,000 
Dushels of oats. 
“If we make a cash estimate of this loss, by putting the price of 
wheat at one dollar a bushel, barley at fifty cents, and oats at twenty- 
five cents, we shall have an aggregate loss of upwards of eight and a 
lalf millions of dollars in the central third of the State of Illinois. 
“In this estimate we have made no account of the injury done to 
3 orn throughout the State, nor of the damage to small grains north 
of the central belt. Here the calculation becomes much more indefi¬ 
nite, but I believe it will be generally admitted to be a low estimate 
if we add, for this purpose, one-quarter part to the above aggregate of 
loss. This will make the total loss caused by Chinch-bugs, in the 
State of Illinois, in the year 1871, upwards of ten and a half millions 
of dollars. If we assume an equal amount of loss for the two States 
of Iowa and Missouri combined, and another equal amount for the 
four States of Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and Wisconsin, we shall 
have a total loss in one year, in the northwestern States, of upwards 
of 30,000,000 of dollars, from this one species of insect.” 
The fears excited by their abundance this year in reference to the 
fate ot the crops in 1872 do not appear to have been realized, as the 
State was again comparatively exempt. In 1873 they commenced to in¬ 
crease again, causing considerable injury in some parts of the State. 
The following letter of complaint from a Southern Illinois farmer, 
published in the Prairie Farmer of October 18, 1873, is of interest in 
Jshowing the various views as to the habits and characteristics of the 
species: 
“I have, as a farmer, suffered from the ravages of the Chinch-bug 
for twenty-eight years; it has steadily increased in numbers While 
at first it only injured oats and spring wheat, it now swarms in our 
cornfields and injures seriously the fall wheat. This summer it has 
attacked our meadows and pastures. In its early advent it appeared 
;to spread from field to field by crawling over the borders, attacking 
hill after hill, or going from stalk to stalk of the growing crop; it now 
flies boldly and in swarms from one locality to another. Some years 
ago it was claimed that to sow a strip of buckwheat or Hungarian 
;grass between the small grain fields and corn would keep them oil'the 
latter—at any rate, to not plant corn adjoining small grain would ex¬ 
empt the corn. Nowq this is no protection, for they fly long distances 
jand wmrk on our crops from spring until late in the fall. I have seen 
corn not more than six inches high destroyed by them. Years ago it 
was generally thought, w'here I then resided, that w r e would have to 
stop raising spring wheat to get clear of them, as it was then the 
only crop they seriously injured; now we would have to make our 
land a desert to starve them out. In discussing the question at our 
club meetings it is strongly insisted by good farmers that the way is 
to make a general and combined burning of all trash in fields and 
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