EXPERIMENTS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF CHINCH- 
BUGS AS THEY EMERGE FROM FIELDS OF 
SMALL GRAIN AT HARYEST. 
The fact that the first generation of the chinch-bug is commonly 
bred in wheat, ' barley, or other small grain from which it is 
obliged to escape on foot as the ripening of the grain deprives it 
of food, suggested long ago the idea that it might be trapped and 
destroyed in its passage from one field to another, acdthe economic 
literature of this insect contains many references to this possi¬ 
bility, and some accounts of practical experiments intended to take 
advantage of it. 
Since the commencement of my own studies of the chinch-bug 
in 1882, there has been no outbreak of it in the vicinity of my 
office until this year, and field experiments of this description 
have consequently been difficult and expensive; but the appear¬ 
ance in the summer of 1894,of destructive numbers of the chinch- 
bug in a field of wheat on the University Experiment Station 
farm, near Urban a, gave the long-desired opportunity. I under¬ 
took, consequently, to determine by precise experiment the actual 
value of certain measures intended to prevent the passage of 
chinch-bugs from one field to another at this season, and 
to trap and destroy them en masse at the border of the infested 
field. These experiments are here reported, together with a few 
others of variable character made by farmers of my acquaintance 
and inspected by us from time to time through the season. 
The two expedients used—the furrow and post-hole barrier and 
the coal-tar belt—have been before the agricultural public for 
many years, but the combination of them in a way to make each 
supplement the other has not before been made so far as I 
am aware. The results of this trial were most encouraging, and 
I cordially recommend the following procedure to farmers gener¬ 
ally as the best now known for the midsummer destruction of 
cliinch-bugs. It compares most favorably with the use of conta¬ 
gious diseases, being immediate in its action, resulting in the 
wholesale destruction of untold myriads of bugs, and being inde¬ 
pendent of the weather and other uncontrollable elements of the 
situation. Indeed, if this method were generally and uniformly 
applied with a persistence at all commensurate with the interests 
at stake—if it were made, that is, a common neighborhood prac¬ 
tice to destroy chinch-bugs as they escape from grain fields at 
harvest time—1 think that we should hear comparatively little of 
a demand for any other method. 
