The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-29
CHlNCH BUG WAR.
Ellis and Sumner County Farm
ers Are Taking PrecautiOn.
Burning Off the Bunch Grass
for Many Miles Around.
TO DESTROY PESTS.
DIR. Headlee, of Agricultural
College, Takes Lead in Work.
Other Items of General Interest
to State Readers.
TO DESTROY PESTS.

Manhattan, Kan, Nov. 29.-If chinch
bugs do much injury to wheat or corn
next year their operations will be not
extensive in the counties of Ellis and
Sumner. Down there the farmers, led
by the entomologist, the bug expert,
DR.. T. ]. Headlee, of the State Agricul-
tural college, are burning off the bunch
grass. At Conway Springs. in Sumner
county, the grass for many miles has
been burned off in the last ten days.
and in Ellis county land included in the
Hays experiment station and farms ad-
joining have been burned. This Is the
time for every farmer to clear up the
bunch grass-the winter quarters of the
bugs.
Probably rs per cent of the chinch
bug family has been destroyed in the
counties mentioned where Intelligent
burning has been practiced. Even if
the fire didn't get them, their homes
were ruined, the tops burned-the roofs
taken off-so that the cold weather
Will finish the job. The fire. it is de-
clared will not seriously injure next
years grass growth.
The current belief that the bugs pass
the winter among the cornstalks,
straw stacks and heaps of rubbish
about the farms is not borne out by in
VeStigationS, when the bugs are abund-
ant no place covered with vegetation is
wholly free from them-but the threat
ening mass of bugs is to be found in
clumps Of bunch-grass and among
blue stem in pastures and mown
meadows; along roadS1deS of high
ways and railroads and in neglected
corners of cultivated fields. Few bugs
were found alternating in fields COW
cred with crab grass or foxtail, and
not many wintering in the cornfields
or in hedgerowS that are devoid of ma
tive clump- forming grasses. In the
meadows from which the native prairie
hay has been moWn great numbers
of the bugs may be found tucked away
about the roots of the grass or hiding
behind the leaf sheaths of the stub
BILE of blueStem. A single clump of this
grass eight inches in diameter growing
on a roadside bordered by a cornfield
was found to contain 10000 chinch
bugs.
Close burning is of the utmost i'm
portance. When the bunch grass is
burned to within one inch of the crown,
unless the fire is exceptionally hot,
very few bugs are killed. But when
the clump is consumed to within one
half inch of the crown about 100 per
cent of the bugs are destroyed.
The situation of the alternating bugs
offers the farmer an excellent oppor-
tunity to attack them. To do this it
will be necessary to run fire over all
pastures, meadows, roadsides and neg
lected places where native grass is
abound. Since the chinch bugs fly
from their winter quarters into the
wheat in the spring, this attack, if it
is to be Of the greatest efficiency, must
be made by all the farmers or land
owners over a continuous and extended
area. The best time to make this gen
eral burning would be just before win
ter sets in, in order that those bugs
escaping might be forced to pass the
winter without protection. The burn
ing should be started as soon as the
grass in which the bugs are alternating
becomes dry enough to burn down
close to the ground. The attack on
the bug should not be delayed until
spring, unless conditions should rem
der it impossible to make it during the
winter The number of bugs hibernat-
ing in the cornfields does not seem to
warrant the burning of the stalks.
Stalks and other litter should be plow
ed under in the fall or winter.
Another matter that calls for con-
sideration is the widespread and err
roneous belief that if the chinch bugs
become dangerous next year, they can,
regardless of weather conditions be
controlled by the introduction of a
fungus disease among them. Investi-
cations show that this fungus, though
present among the bugs, will not con-
troll them.
Former Kansan Shot Himself.