The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1909-12-02
CHINCH BUGS DUE AGAIN NEXT
YEAR
Iowa Farmers Warned to be Ready
to Fight the Greatest Pest the
Farmer Ever Knew.
The department of agriculture h,

The department of agriculture has
just issued bulletin warning the
farmers of the middle west that an
other serious outbreak of the chinch
bug is likely to occur the coming
year. Iowa is one of the states in
which the chinch bug has been most
destructive in years past and the
warning particularly concerns that
state, as well as Nebraska, Kansas,
Missouri, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio
and Texas.
According to F. M. Webster, who
has charge of cereals and forage in
sect Investigations for the govern
ment, no other insect native of the
western hemisphere has spread its
devastating hordes over q wider
area of country with more fatal eff
feet to the staple grains of North
America than has the chinch bug.
1t is estimated that in the last sixty
years the chinch bug has caused
loss exceeding s35,000,OO0 in the
middle western states alone. Iowa
has suffered greatly from this pest.
During it's ravages in 1871, the
farmers of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois,
Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin and
Indiana sustained a loss of $780,
100000. Again in 1887, Iowa was
one of the nine middle western
states that lost 100000, 900 worth
of crops due to the outbreak of
chinch bugs in that year. There was
another serious loss from chinch
bugs in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota
and Illinois in 1892.
For several years past these states
have been practically immune from
attacks of the chinch bug, but now
government experts declare that an
other outbreak is about due and the
department of agriculture is seeking
to instruct the farmers of the mid.
die west as to the precaution they
should take to minimize the loss
threatening them.
The dry seasons that have pre-
vailed throughout the middle west
during the last two years are said to
have permitted the chinch bug to
gain another foothold in that sec
ton of the country which now seems
to be on the Threshold of series
of years of crop abundance and de-
struction owing to this pest.
Drenching rains are the greatest fac
tor in discriminating the chinch bug.
In fact, government experts believe
that if it were not for the generally
heavy rains, the practice of raising
grain year after year on the same
areas would become altogether I'M
profitable in the United States, ow-
ing to the chinch bugs.
With the weather bureau falling
to provide sufficient rains the past
few seasons to drown out the pest,
1t is up to the farmers now to take
measures suggested by the govern
ment experts for the control of the
rapidly advancing hordes of chinch
bugs. The fact that each female
chinch bug is capable of laying from
one to 500 eggs season shows the
rapidly with which these crop de-
stroyers spread over the country. In
the middle west, where the insect
does it's greatest injury the crops
suffer from two attacks annually.
Chinch bugs hibernate to large
extent in old corn shocks, brush and
dead leaves, therefore one Of the
principal measures urged for their
destruction is for the farmers to
burn all such rubbish in the fall of
the year. The chinch bugs can be
destroyed also while migrating from
one field to another by tarred bar
riers of deep burrows and by bury
ing them with the pillow and harrow.
Other ways of combating the pest
are suggested in a bulletin on the
chinch bug, which the department of
agriculture has ready for distribu-
tion among the farmers of the mid
die west who make application for
it.
The common quail, or bobwhite,
is the only bird known to devour
the chinch bugs in considerable
numbers and the department of ag-
riculture urges that the farmers of
the middle west see to it that quails
are protected in the states and that
the laws guarding these birds are
enforced stringently. In Iowa the
killing of quail is prohibited from
December 18th to November 1st
Nebraska forbids the killing of quail
at any time during the year.
1t is said that if the farmers
would but watch the seasons, he
need not be taken unawares by
chinch bug outbreaks, as dry wea-
Their during the two breeding sea-
sons is usually sufficient to precipi-
tate an invasion the following year,
provided that, at the critical period
or time of Matching, rains do not de-
stroy the young. The general state
ment may be made that throughout
the middle west, a dry June, fol-
lowed by dry August. is favorable
for the development of chinch bugs.
Rich Mems Gifts are Poor