St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-10-09
HOW HE TRAPPED THEM.
He Killed the Chinch Bugs and
Saved His Corn Crop.

In its report of the meeting Of the
Farmers club, at Red Wing, the Re-
publican has this account of the manner
in which E. Brown, of Wacouta, trapped
the chinch bugs and saved his corn:
Mr.. Browns field of corn lay for fifty
rods side by side with a field of barley
belonging to l.. j, Boynton. He had
observed that the bug was very abun-
dant i'll the barley, and he had made up
his mind to try and save his corn and
There was about fifteen feet between
the corn and Boynton's barley, and
he plowed and narrowed a strip
next his corn and strung along
some fence boards, which he had
secured, ready to set up whenever the
army, having finished the barley, should
have to move on. One afternoon he
saw they had begun to come over a
strip some rods wide. He at once set
up his fence boards, but it soon APP
peared that old boards, having nail
holes, shakes and cracks would not an
sWer. and he took instead some new
sawed siXteen-foot stuff, clear and sound,
and with that made his fence. He set
each one about two inches into
the ground, so it would stand up, made
a straight cut at the end of each board
and scribed the next to it so as to MAKE
close joints everywhere. Then with a
brush and pail of kerosene he went
along brushing lightly the top of every
board with the oil. The chinch bug
does not like kerosene, and the oil does
not, in fact, agree with them. They
could not get over this low fence with
the kerosene streak on top. But they
could travel along it and go round the
end.
To prevent that Mr.. Brown got jars
and crooks. holding. say, two gallons or
more, and sunk them along outside of his
fence, one every five, six or eight rods,
the top of the jar five or six inches be-
low the top of the ground, and the earth
round it all Smoothed to slope to the edge
of the Jar, and the surface covered with
perfectly dry fine earth or dry ashes. slop-
ing as steep as they would lie. In a
two-gallon jar he put about two quarts
of water and some drops of kerosene on
the top of the water. From the top of
the fence board keroSened as aforesaid,
draw a narrow line of kerosene each
side of the jar sloping towards each
other and coming to the bottom of the
board where the ashes or dry dirt slopes
to the jar. So far Brown.
INOM lilC Nlli4iOL DO3 Afto iiio
He leaves the barley, crawls over the
few feet between that and the board
with the oiled edge, scrambles up the
board, finds the oil and moves along to
the right or left little below the edge
of the board till he comes to the line
drawn from top to bottom, turns down
the board to the lower edge and gets off,
falls off, or is pushed off by the next on
the ashes, or dust, and then rolls and
tumbles down into the water. The
touch of kerosene kills him almost in
stantly, and he sinks to the bottom and
leaves the space for the next.
Then the Brown family come inagain.
A small boy goes over the edge OF the
boards with the brush wet with kero-
sene: firmer hand, with dipper, dips
the dead bugs out of the jars and puts
on little more kerosene. and all of
them stand and enjoy the easy death
they have devised for the energy. The
edge of the fence must not become free
of the odor of kerosene; two or three
brushings daily will answer. 1t took
about twenty gallons of oil to save Mr..
Browns corn. and he absolutely saved
it; not an ear had been hurt by
he chinch bug. He followed the