64 
Farmers’ Review, July 21, 1881, v. 7, p. 41. The Chinch-Bug 
Pest. & 
Complaint concerning chinch-bug injuries to wheat more wide¬ 
spread than for many years. Principal damage done on old lands. 
Editor recommends fertilizers. Mentions a field exhausted by nearly 
fifty years cultivation, which was in part fertilized with barn¬ 
yard manure and slight admixture of wood ashes and plaster. On 
fertilized portion, wheat unusually thrifty and free from insects; 
on unfertilized, thin and sickly, insects wholly destroying it before 
harvest-time. “They never attacked the grain on the manured 
land, though the pieces were only divided by the furrow up to 
where manure had been applied.’’ Proprietor said he had never 
seen chinch bugs or Hessian fly in wheat where nitrogenous fer¬ 
tilizers had been freely applied. Thinks insects are seldom 
troublesome until soil has lost a large percentage of nitrogen and 
phosphates. Considers these properties objectionable to the in¬ 
sects. 
Mosely, Henry C.—From Central Illinois. (Farmers’ Review, 
Aug. 4, 1881, v. 7, p. 73.) 
Notes the mistake of a farmer who, after plowing under in spring 
a piece of fall wheat devoured by the chinch bugs, planted the 
land to corn and lost that. Better plan to have sowed buckwheat. 
Farmer and Fruit Grower, Aug. 17, 1881. Perry County Crops. 
For fifty years has not been such an utter failure of crops as 
this season. Drouth and chinch bugs. 
Thomas, Cyrus.— Crop Destroyers: The Corn Worm, Chinch Bug, 
and Army Worm. (Farmers’ Review, Aug. 18, 1881.) 
Mention of verification of his cliincli-bug predictions for 1881. 
“Although our farmers have suffered severely by this verification, 
«. a lue to them in the future, as it is additional evi¬ 
dence of the correctness of my statement that chinch bugs will 
only appear generally and in injurious numbers where two dry 
years appear in succession, the latter being above the ordinary 
temperature. If my warnings had been heeded, and farmers had 
relied upon oats instead of corn for stock provender, a very large 
saving would have been the result.” 
Prairie Farmer, Aug. 20, 1881. The Chinch Bug. 
Editorial note of present serious injuries in the West, with com¬ 
piled account of history and life history of the chinch bug. 
Thomas, Cyrus.— Corn Worms, Chinch Bugs, Hessian Fly. (Prai¬ 
rie Farmer, Aug. 20, 1881.) 
Reference to. his advice to sow oats instead of corn, and the 
benefit that might have resulted if it had been regarded. After 
the appearance of the bugs, irrigation the only way of destroying 
them without destroying the crop,—and that is very seldom prac¬ 
ticable. 
