118 
headlands, thickets, borders of woods, etc. Wire fences or a 
stock law making fences generally needless would facilitate this 
measure. With regard to the second period we can only prepare 
for the attack. “We may refrain, as far as possible, from raising 
the favorite crops of the chinch bug—especially wheat, baney, 
and rye—with the double advantage of thus subjecting ourselves 
to little or no immediate injury, and of reducing the numbers 
of the bugs that infest one’s premises later.” In regard 
to wheat, however, the weight of much carefully accumulated 
evidence goes to show that while this is an indispensable pre¬ 
ventive measure, it will not, when bugs ,are. present in large 
numbers, greatly reduce them, since, not finding wheat or. rye, 
they will breed elsewhere. In Southern Illinois, under existing 
circumstances, this expedient must not be relied on to the exclusion 
of more active measures. (3) Raise clover generally as forage 
plant when cliinch-bug injury is imminent, as we have learned 
here that the grasses cannot then be relied upon for either meadow 
or pasture. (3) Use every means to increase and maintain the 
fertility of the soil, especially relying on the direct application of 
fertilizers to crops attacked or liable to injury. By this means 
have raised first-class crops of wheat, though ground w y as “enor¬ 
mously infested” by chinch bugs in the beginning of the season. 
(4) Clover or flax may be sowm on wheat in spring. (3) Sow- 
wheat early as a measure against chinch-bug injury—though this will 
of course "increase the liability to damage by the Hessian fly. 
(6) Sowing favorite food plants as lures or decoys is advised as an 
experiment. As bugs fly abroad in spring they w 7 ill be. almost 
certainly attracted to such growth for the deposition of their eggs, 
and may be destroyed there, with the young, by deep plowing and 
rolling, late in JMay or early in June. Later in the season the same 
ground might be sowed to millet or Hungarian, and the second 
generation be destroyed similarly to the first. Next, as to . meas¬ 
ures suited to the third critical period,—the time of .the midsum¬ 
mer migration. (1) The bugs may be almost certainly detained 
where they originated, or killed as they attempt to escape, by a 
narrow belt of coal-tar, mixed with ten per cent, of oil oi giease, 
poured into a furrow 7 extending around the field and cleared of 
loose earth, or placed on a continuous belt of boards. This mixture 
will need to be renew 7 ed once in three or four days, and ^ for five 
applications along a line of forty rods will cost between Sl-50 and 
£2.00. The bugs which accumulate along the belt may be destroyed 
by hot water, kerosene, or some mechanical method. . Fields of 
corn may be protected against the first and w r orst in\ asion by such 
a barrier on the side next grain fields. (2) Such as enter th€ 
corn notwithstanding, may be killed there with kerosene emulsion 
According to some experiments made in Iowa the cost of appli¬ 
cation is about seventy cents per acre. (3) The fertilization oi 
corn in the hill has proven a considerable defence. (4) Lari} 
ripening varieties are of advantage, as they mature in advance oi 
injury by the second generation of bugs. “Other measures ar( 
a separation of crops liable to attack, plowing undei infestec 
