101 
C. DIRECT DESTRUCTION. 
]. Destroying the hugs by fire in tlieir winter quarters in fall 
and spring. After the first frost in autumn, and before the warm 
invigorating weather of a well-established spring, the bugs are all 
concealed under rubbish—most abundant usually around head¬ 
lands, under corn stalks, etc., and often, also, among the dead 
leaves in the borders of woods. Here vast numbers of the bugs 
may be destroyed by burning (especially where wire fences make 
this process comparatively easy), and every one of these winter 
residents killed may mean a hundred thousand less in the fields 
the following summer. While this measure will often pay the 
individual farmer as a protection of his own crops alone (since 
these are usually first and Tvorst damaged by the bugs harbored 
on his own grounds), yet the full measure of possible benefit can 
only be obtained by general action by the farmers of a neighbor¬ 
hood. Burning will be more effective in fall than in spring, 
because the bugs not destroyed by fire will be exposed to the 
winter weather by the destruction of their shelter. It is necessary 
that the burning should be done when the grass and rubbish are 
thoroughly dry, otherwise the fire may run lightly over it without 
destroying the insects. 
2. Distributing straw, corn stalks, etc., as lures to hibernal ion, 
and then burning. By offering inviting winter quarters in and 
around infested fields, the adults may be readily collected where 
they can be conveniently and completely destroyed. 
3. Spreading straw and rubbish around ripening grain fields 
and burning at night. Chinch bugs leaving a field are disposed 
to shelter themselves at night, and are thus exposed to destruction 
by this method. 
4. Similar protection may be afforded to corn fields subject to 
invasion. 
5. Plowing up killed grain and planting to other crops. Nearly 
all the younger bugs wili find it impossible to escape from a plowed 
field, and will perish by starvation. 
6. Plowing under deep, or killing by burning over the ground 
where grain has been destroyed.. Sometimes a light covering of 
straw will be necessary for this latter purpose. 
7. Plowing under the outer roics of corn, where these have 
been invaded from adjacent fields of grain. 
8. The application of insecticides: gas lime to wheat and corn; 
the kerosene emulsion to corn, possibly, also, to wheat in early 
spring; hot water and soap suds to infested stalks of corn. 
As farm help is relatively abundant after harvest, applications 
of inexpensive insecticides may sometimes be made with profit, 
especially if their use upon a few of the outer rows of corn shall have 
the effect to protect the entire field. A simple mechanical mixture 
of water and three per cent, of kerosene is deadly to chinch bugs 
