140 
About a dozen chinch-bugs, received from this office, were placed 
in a box July 1, prepared according to our directions, with live 
insects and fresh food, both of which were renewed as necessary, 
a few whitened bugs being taken out of the box each time that it 
was opened, and distributed in the corn. July 15, about a hun¬ 
dred fungus-covered specimens were placed behind leaves and on 
the ground, where the bugs were most abundant, in a field of 
corn on Mr. A. H. Jackson’s farm, a quarter of a mile south of 
his house. Two similar distributions were made in this field July 
28 and August 12. The corn was examined every week, but no 
indication was found that the disease was spreading, the chinch- 
bug attack, in fact, increasing steadily week by week. The corn 
was cut and shocked about (September 8, in order to save it for 
fodder, and the bugs collected in the shocks, where they remained 
until late in fall. This field was carefully examined by Mr. John¬ 
son October 10. The corn had been thoroughly wet by heavy 
rains soon after cutting, and the ground was still very wet under 
the shocks. There was little or no grass in the open field, and 
consequently very few chinch-bugs. They were quite abundant 
in the shocks, and numerous in an adjoining meadow, but not 
sufficiently so to do any appreciable damage. A careful search 
was made in shocks all over the field, but no traces of the white 
fungus were found except in four shocks in the northeast corner, 
and here the greater part of the diseased insects were found in 
the third shock of the first row on the north, counting from the 
east. Several hundred chinch-bugs and three beetles ( Coccinella 
9-noiaia Hbst., Atcvnius siercorator, Fab., and Ejncaida vittata, , 
Fab.) completely enveloped in the white fungus were taken from 
the ground and from behind leaves in the shock. Half a dozen 
chinch-bugs dead with Sporotrichum were taken from three other 
shocks in the immediate vicinity. The disease was also found in 
small quantities in corn shocks directly east on the opposite side 
of the road; and three whitened bodies were taken from a low 
damp furrow or ditch in the meadow adjoining on the north. A 
few fungus-covered bugs were found in corn shocks in an orchard 
near the house, and quite a number were found in shocks and on 
the ground in low damp places in a corn field one mile east. 
Just why the disease should have been so abundant in the sin¬ 
gle shock mentioned above, and totally absent or nearly so in all 
other shocks in the field, we will not attempt to explain. Suffice 
it to say that the infection was distributed along this side of the 
field, and that all the other shocks in the same row were similarly 
situated and cut at the same time. 
The experiment was a failure, and did not arrest the ravages of 
the bugs in the least. A part of the fungus-covered bugs col¬ 
lected in these fields were placed in Mr. W. E. Jackson’s hands for 
future experimental purposes. 
No. 80. A farmer’s experiment, made by Mr. C. M. Filsou, 
Xenia, Clay county, the original material for which was derived 
from this office. The box was carefully prepared according to our 
circular of directions (see p. 92), and infected June 20 with about 
