The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1904-05-05
STUDY BUGS AND WORMS.

The Critical Point Where the Farmer
Drops His Money In the Dirt.
At the recent state farmers institute
of Illinois Professor Forbes of the
state university gave a suggestive adj
dress on those insects of the farm
which are most injurious and which
the farmer should be able readily to
recognize in order that he may find
means to effectually cut short the ac-
quaintance The corn crop, for in
stance said Professor Forbes, may suf-
fer insect injury from the time the seed
is in the ground until the ear is in the
crib and even until the meal is in the
mush bowl The planted kernel may
be eaten by the wireworm or the seed
corn maggOt; the young plant may
cease to grow because it's roots are be-
ing devoured by the wireworm or the
white grub or because the sap is being
sucked from them by the corn root
aphis. Its soft stem may be burrowed
by the stalk borer or pierced by bill
bugs or cut off by the cutworms. Its
young leaves may be eaten by the corn
worm, which later may mine through
the kernels beneath the still green
husks.
The whole plant may be devoured by
the army worm in May or June or it
may be so blackened by chinch bugs in
June or July, as these insects come out
from adjoining fields of ripening wheat
Or oats, that it withers and dries up
md no o6c ~ thnir g
as if it were scOrched by fire. When
it has grown tall and strong it may
weaken and fall to the ground because
it's larger roots have been mined by
the corn root worm or eaten by the ever
present white grub or because the de-
velopment of it's brace roots has been
prevented by chinch bugs sucking
away the sap from the crown of the
plant, and when it's product has been
harvested the ear in the crib may be
peppered with the shot holes of the
grain moths and their like, and the
meal in the sack may be made often
sive and unwholsome by the meal
worm.
Meadow and Pasture Foes.
The meadow and pasture grasses,
the small grains and the clover crop
are similarly liable to various and con-
tinuous injury throughout the whole
season of their growth; some of it is
conspicuous and generally understood,
like the work of the HeSsian fly in
wheat, and some of it commonly over
looked because individually minute, al
though serious in the aggregate, like
the work of the crowds of tiny leaf
hoppers on the pasture grasses in mid
summer, or because it is comparatively
rare, like the injuries to timothy by the
bill bug larvae, living in its dubious
roots, and those to clover or the cow
pea by the swarms of plant lice that
sometimes drain and deaden the foli-
age
Insects and Crop Rotation.
In view of the foregoing, Professor
Forbes thinks it behooves farmers to
know few of the facts and some Of
the language of general entomology.
1t will pay the farmer well to recOg-
nize the common injurious insects and
to become acquainted with the main
facts of their transformations, habits
and life history.
The farmer should also know the
effect of the common crop rotations on
insects injurious to the crops involved
in the rotation. The critical period in
the ordinary fixed routine of the farm
Is that of the change from grass to
corn, and more Of the farmers money
is dropped into the dirt right there
than anywhere else in the whole
scheme of his ordinary operations