36 
f 
J[ohnson], B. F.— [Letters from Champaign County, Illinois, in 
Cultivator and Country Gentleman.] 
June 1, 1871, v. 36, p. 340. “The chinch bug, which is not seen 
on the calcareous soils south of latitude 39°, has done a great 
deal of damage north of that parallel; but the bugs are now be¬ 
lieved to be migrating, and though they do not go in clouds and 
darken the air like locusts in Algeria and grasshoppers in Utah, 
they are flying in countless numbers in a southwesterly direction.” 
June 8, 1871, p. 364. “The chinch bugs are taking the oats.” 
Sept. 7, 1871, p. 564. Mentions presence of drouth and chinch 
bugs in large portions of Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minne¬ 
sota, which are causing immense loss. In attacking corn, bugs 
begin at “brace roots” and go up, sucking sap as they go. Drouth 
and chinch bugs “hunt in couples.” Sept. 21, 1871, p. 597. Chinch 
bugs are still [Sept. 14] at work in Champaign county. 
Cultivator and Country Gentleman, June 8, 1871, v. 36, p. 361. 
An Insect Year. 
Scores of complaints of chinch bugs come from Illinois and 
Iowa, and some from other sections.” 
Prairie Farmer, July 7, 1871. 
From Livingston Co, June 28, 1871, a correspondent reports 
total ruin to spring wheat by chinch bug, and great damage to 
corn and oats. Probably not one tenth of the oats in the county 
will be harvested, while much of the corn has been killed by the 
bugs, and scarcely a piece can be found which is not more or 
less injured. 
[LeBaron, Wm. ]—Visit to McLean and Tazewell Counties. The 
Chinch Bugs. (Prairie Farmer, Aug. 5, 1871.) 
Piecords his personal observation of the “desolated fields” and 
“blasted harvest” of the above-named counties, where, he says, 
“they raise chinch bugs instead of spring wheat.” Speaks of an 
irregular periodicity in the appearance and disappearance of the 
insect, and of the ominous warnings they give of their advent one 
or two years before their onslaught, if one carefully notes their 
histon\ Says that unmistakable warning was given in 1870 of 
the prevalence of the bugs this season [1871]. They were also 
noticed during the winter by their odor, as the shocks of corn 
were fed, and were flying abundantly early in spring. These were 
harbingers of the hosts “which have devastated the fields of spring 
wheat and barley all through the central counties of Illinois, and 
also in parts of Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and the southern bor¬ 
der of Nebraska.” Believes that by abandoning the raising of 
spring wheat and barley (if driven to the necessity) we can get rid 
of the chinch bug,—although he notes rare instances where the 
insect seems to have bred in oats. 
