32 
As these last are the stock-feeding crops, the facts may be other¬ 
wise generalized by saying that a stock country is much less liable 
to damage by the chinch bug than one in which the small grains 
are the staple crops. 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT OPINION. 
Before leaving this subject it may be well to give an abstract 
of the opinions respecting wheat culture and the chinch bug ex¬ 
pressed by economic entomologists, and by the township assessors 
replying to my inquiry, as given on page 11. 
The only published mention of this subject by Dr. Asa Fitch 
which I have seen, is contained in his second report as 
State Entomologist of New York (1856), p. 279, where he says, 
without committing himself personally, that crops were so de¬ 
stroyed in some districts of North Carolina in 1785, or shortly 
after, that farmers were obliged to wholly abandon the sowing of 
wheat; and that again in 1809 the insects were reported to have 
been subdued by the abandonment of wheat for two years. 
Dr. Wm. Le Baron, the second State Entomologist of Illinois, 
writes in the “Prairie Farmer,” September 2, 1871, “Chinch bugs 
originate almost exclusively in spring wheat or barley, and we 
have it in our power, if driven to this necessity, of getting rid of 
these destructive insects, and keeping clear of them, by abandon¬ 
ing the raising of these two kinds of grain.” In his second ento¬ 
mological report (for 1871), page 154, he remarks that “we always 
have it in our power to get rid of these pests by the abandonment 
of these two kinds of grain [spring wheat and barley] for one or 
two years; but to make this course effective, there must be a con¬ 
cert of action by farmers over a considerable section of country.” 
The editors of the “American Entomologist,” B. D. Walsh and 
C. V. Biley, say in Volume I. (1869), of that journal, page 171 
“At last western farmers will be compelled, as those of North Caro¬ 
lina have already several times been compelled, to quit growing 
wheat altogether for a term of years;” and in his Seventh Report 
as State Entomologist of Missouri (for 1874), p. 36, Dr. Biley 
remarks that “if in late winter the bugs are known to be numer¬ 
ous, it will be well to plant no spring wheat or barley.” 
Dr. Cyrus Thomas, the third State Entomologist of Illinois, 
writing of this matter in Bulletin 5 of the American Entomolog¬ 
ical Commission (1879), p. 40, regards the plan of abandoning 
wheat culture as impracticable, and seriously doubts whether it 
will be of any real advantage, if we take into consideration the 
loss of the crop. “That it will be of no permanent benefit,” he 
adds, “I think must be admitted by every one who is acquainted 
with the habits of the species. In order that the remedy be made 
effectual it would be necessary to transform our land into a 
desert.” 
In January, 1881, discussing in the “Farmers’ Review” (Jan. 20, 
p. 35), the probabilities of injury by chinch bugs in Kansas and 
Nebraska, and giving advice as to the best methods of cropping 
