American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-10-10
How to Exterminate Chinch Bugs.

OUR valuable paper Drought out Il
| good many articles on the chinch bug
question, and, as you call for more cor
| respondence in regard to it, l will give
you my experience with them, and also
the only remedy by which l think they
can be exterminated to such an extent
that they can do very little damage to
the crops. For the last five years we
have been troubled with this curse of
the grain grower, doing more or less
damage, according to the season-the
more rain we had the smaller the dam
age done by them. l have carefully
studied their habits from their first APP
pearance, and have found Prof. Riley's
report of them to be correct. Various
decOctions that | have made and poured
on them proved to be complete failures.
Some of them that would kill the bugs
were too costly to be applied on Il large
scale. l have come to the conclusion
that after the bugs have once deposited
their eggs in the spring, it is almost use
less to tight them. Log dragging and
boards with Il coat of tar on them will
check their march from one field to
another for few days only, as the bugs
will use their wings and scatter all over
the corn before you are aware of it. Now
for my remedy:
Last year | had about 100 acres in
corn, in four different fields, all separated
from each other, either by running water
or stubble fields. All this corn was cut
up and shocked. The fields had all suf-
fered very much from the chinch bug,
which went into the cOrnstalks after
they were put up in such numbers that it
was very disagreeable to husk the corn
afterward, we sometimes finding as
much as a tablespoonful of the insects in
one ear of corn. During the winter the
shocks were hauled out of the fields and
fed to stock in the barn-yard, andsthe
refuse stalks thrown on the ma
nure pile, where the stock tramped
them down and into the mud so that no
chinch bugs survived it. About forty
shocks we're left over in two different
fields, which were scattered and plowed
under. This year l have 200 acres in
corn in six different fields, two of which
were bought this spring with the corn
stalks standing on them. Early this
spring, when the corn began to come up,
looked for chinch bugs and found them
as follows: In the fields where the stalks
had been left standing they were distrib-
uted evenly over the whole field except
the wettest spots in the field where the
cOrnstalks had been left; and in the
spots where the stalks had been scattered
and plOwed under and where all the
shocks had been hauled out none were
to be seen. Now, l shall never leave any
stalks or shocks in field again. If |
cannot feed them and thus make manure
of them l shall burn them during the
winter before the warm weather or
spring sets in, and l am convinced that
if this is done by all farmers we shall,
after a few years, hear no more of crops
destroyed by the bugs.
Chinch bugs seek shelter as soon as
frost sets in, especially in corn and fence
corners, under weeds and the dead blue
grass, and if fence corners are kept
clean, as they ought to be, they will find
no shelter there. There is no danger of
the chinch bug living in the manure
piles, as l hauled out over 200 loads that
were made of stalks almost alive with
them, and have not seen single bug in
the field where it was hauled to.-Cor
RuyUZ WnrII