il 
that this process of mutual cancellation must have reduced them 
practically to nothing, with the exception ot certain geographical 
differences to be noticed when that plate is discussed. 
Because of the unavoidable variations thus arising, I have made 
no use, in my discussions, of averages drawn from groups of less 
than five towns each,—a limit which excludes the more violent, 
accidental, and miscellaneous fluctuations, but which still leaves 
some of considerable importance. 
Further, it is to be noted that the terms used in the township 
reports of injury are not uniformly graded, the gradations being 
much closer for the lower degrees of damage than for the higher. 
The destruction of half a crop would doubtless be called a “great 
loss, if not a “very great” one, so that the first fifty per cent, of 
injury is divided by my scale of expressions into four or five de¬ 
grees, and the last fifty per cent, into only two or three. 
I have also to notice that it was usually quite impossible to 
distinguish accurately the amount of damage done by chinch bugs 
from that due to drouth, and it is probable that many of the 
severest cases of damage were really due to drouth and insects 
combined. 
Finally, I beg to remind the reader that the facts here pre¬ 
sented are derived from more than eight hundred men widely 
scattered throughout the State,. each' peculiarly competent to 
observe and report the data for his own district; and that the evi¬ 
dence thus accumulated far outweighs that on which any one man 
or any entire neighborhood can rest an opinion,—amounts to many 
times "more, indeed, than all that has been previously reported on 
this topic. I believe that I am asking no more than is deserved by 
the tedious labor whose outcome is here presented, when I claim that 
this mass of testimony should be considered as decisive wherever 
its indications are positive and manifest. 
INJURY TO CORN AS COMPARED WITH ACREAGE IN WHEAT AND OTHER 
GRAINS. 
Table I. 
Southern Illinois, 191 Toivns. Injury to Corn, 1887, compared 
with Crop Areas for the Same Year. 
Degree of Injury. 
No. 
of Tps. 
Wheat. 
Barley. 
Rye. 
Oats. 
Corn. 
Grass. 
None. 
4 
1,784 
1 
5 
1,093 
1,811 
2,462 
Little. 
2 
3,974 
4 
15 
1,872 
2,876 
1,640 
ATnderate 
1 
1, 600 
245 
800 
210 
Considerable .. 
7 
1,905 
14 
1,114 
2,419 
2,121 
Great. 
24 
3,'289 
1 
18 
1,521 
3,057 
2,805 
Very great. . 
40 
2,278 
16 
1,375 
2,391 
2,616 
Nearly complete. 
85 
2,'945 
3 
23 
2,104 
2,859 
3,152 
Complete. 
28 
4,266 
1 
17 
2,671 
3,157 
2, 975 
