The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-03-06
The ChiDch Bug.

DR.. CYRUS THOMAS, President of the
Illinois University, at Carbondale, and
member of the United States EEtomo-
logical Commission, has just completed
valuable paper on the chinch bug, its
history, characteristics and habits, and
the means of destroying it or counter
acting its injuries. He says the chinch
bug is unquestionably the most for
midable insect pest with which the
farmers within the wheat-producing
area of the United States have to con-
tend.
The locusts of the West are the only
creatures of this class whose multiple
cations causes more sweeping destruc-
ton than that of this diminutive and
seemingly insignificant insect. The
loss from this insect in Illinois alone in
1850 was estimated at $4,000,000, an
average of $40 to every man, woman
and child then living in the State. 1t
attained the maximum of development
in the summer of 1864, in the extensive
wheat and corn fields of the Valley of
the Mississippi, and in that single year
three-fourths of the wheat and One-half
OF the corn crops were destroyed
throughout many extensive districts,
comprising almost the entire North
west, with an estimated loss of more
than 500, 100000 in currency.
The center of their severest ravages
is in belt in Illinois about on a line
with the junction of Iowa and Missouri,
and taking in corresponding part of
Southern Iowa and Nebraska, and of
loss by chinch bugs in the State of Hi
nois in 1871 was upwards of S10,50O,-
900, and taking an equal amount in
Iowa and Missouri, and again an equal
amount in Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska
and Wisconsin, the loss in these States
alone from this one species of insect
was upwards of 5000, 900.
AS the species appears to have
maximum of development about every
i've years, the foregoing estimates, DR..
Thomas thinks, render it probable that
the annual loss to the Nation by its
operations averages 800, 900, 900. The
insect first appeared in Illinois in 1910;
in 1847 in Iowa, in 1847 in Indiana, in
Wisconsin in 1854, and in 1871 over the
entire Northwest. Of the natural agen-
cies which assist in their destruction,
DR.. Thomas says that the clinch-bug
has no such relentless enemies as those
that pursue the army-worm, plant-lice,
etc. There are a few insects that prev
upon them, but not sufficiently numer-
GUS to make any material impression
on the vast hordes of these invaders of
our grain fields. The most efficient of
these aids mentioned are the Herpector
Cinctus, or banded bug, and the frog.
Professor Ross expresses the belief that
the destruction of the frog by draining
their natural haunts, is one reason WIN
the chinch-bug multiplies as rapidly as
it does in some seasons, and DR.. Fitch
is mentioned as suggesting the idea of
sprinkling. The artificial remedies
given by DR.. LIE Baron, State Entomolo-
gist of Illinois, and quoted by DR..
Thomas, are:
l. The plan of sowing grain so early
in the spring as to get in advance of
their depredations
2. The attempt to save part of the
crop by preventing the migration of the
bugs from one field to another by fur
rows of kerosene oil.
3. The method of destroying the in
sects by burning corn-stalks and other.
rubbish in which they are supposed to
hibernate.
A The prevention of their breeding
to any serious extent by abstaining