118 
neighborhood of this field. The occurrence of this disease seemed 
to be universally spontaneous at this time, and we found traces 
of it in all the surrounding counties. 
Mr. Wells wrote November 20 that the disease was still pres¬ 
ent in corn (B), and reported having seen many fresh fungus- 
covered bugs in corn shocks while husking corn at that time. 
With all the facts before ns concerning the interesting occur¬ 
rences upon this farm, we cannot say that our experiment was 
successful from the economic point of view, for the muscardine 
outbreak did not reach its maximum until after the corn had 
passed the growing season, and it was therefore of no practical 
use in protecting the crop from the ravages of the chinch-bug. 
Neither can w^e say that it was certaiuly due to the artificial dis¬ 
tribution of infected specimens, as the fungus was present here 
when the first lot of dead chinch-bugs was distributed. (See No. 
55.) We must also note that an innumerable host of chinch-bugs 
remained in the corn in a perfectly vigorous condition during the 
entire dry period, which included the latter part of June, all of 
July, and a greater part of August; and that the muscardine 
fungus apparently disappeared with the advent of this dry 
weather, not attracting attention again until early in September, 
after the fall rains had set in, more than a month and a half 
from the time when the last infected bugs were distributed. 
Myriads of pupm and full grown chinch-bugs were present, in¬ 
deed, in the very midst of the disease in September, and remained 
apparently healthy and vigorous until winter came on. The 
ratio of insects dead with muscardine to the live ones present in 
the field was insignificantly small to the last. 
We were also in doubt whether the occurrence of the fungus 
on farms adjacent to that of Mr. Wells is t) be attributed to its 
spread from his premises, especially as we found it early in 
October (from the 6th to the 13th) generally prevalent in the 
counties of Marion, Effingham, Clay, Jasper, Richland, Cumber¬ 
land, Bond, Morgan, Sangamon, and Champaigu. It seems quite 
possible, indeed, that its appearance on the Wells farm itself was 
due to the conditions that favored its general development at this 
time throughout the greater part of Southern Illinois. 
Finally, we have no really positive assurauce that its growth 
and spread on Mr. Wells’s farm was even hasteued by his whole¬ 
sale and persistent distribution of dead bugs, for the fungus was 
quite as abundant at the same tiun in far distant places, where 
only a few infected insects had been distributed (see No. 77), 
and in still others where no disease whatever had been artificially 
introduced (No. 73). It was almost entirely absent in other dis¬ 
tant localities where large quantities of both cultivated material 
and infected insects had been scattered. (Nos. 63, 61, 65, 66, 
and 67.) 
No. 58. This is also a farmer’s field infection experiment, the 
last of the series conducted on the Wells farm. June 10 Mr. 
Wells placed part of the material taken from his contagion box 
(No. 56) on that date in the northwest corner of oats (C), where 
