From Farm Spies, How the Boys Investigated Field Crop Insects by A. F. Conradi, and W. A. Thomas; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916; pp. 105-124.
CHINCH-BUGS
IT was on a Saturday afternoon in December when five boys of the neighborhood had gathered at the home of Sammy Sprague. The day was lovely — one of those warm, cheerful winter afternoons; the ground was dry and it seemed that everything was just in the right condition for boys to have a good time. While they were playing in the yard Mr. Sprague came and opened the corn-crib to get some corn for the mules. Billy Burnet, who was near the door at that time, did just what any other boy would have done had he been there instead of Billy, — he peeked into the crib. That Billy did that was no sign that he was a bad boy, nor was it a sign of bad manners, but he was a healthy robust boy, full of life, and full of boy-curiosity. Like every other healthy boy he found the world full of interesting things; he was always afraid that something might happen that he would fail to hear or see. For this reason he was continually peeking into, over, and around everything and continually asking questions. Did you ever see a boy like Billy?
106When he peeked into Mr. Sprague’s corn-crib he said, “Great goshens! You have a lot of corn, Mr. Sprague. Did you make it all on your farm or did you buy some of it?”
“No, my boy,” Mr. Sprague answered, “I raised that corn on my farm, and if it had not been for the chinch-bugs I should have more than you see here now. Those beggars surely damaged my corn severely; I judge they ruined nearly one-fourth of my crop.” While he was picking up the corn he noticed that Billy was eying him from head to foot with grave, wide open, questioning eyes. When he had stepped through the door again and had fastened it he saw that Billy’s eyes were still on him.
Bursting into a laugh he looked at the boy and said: “Why are you looking me over so gravely, sonny? I am Sam Sprague, your old neighbor, who used to joggle you on his knees when you were a little ‘shaver.’ ”
Billy, without changing his manner, asked, “What did you say damaged your corn?”
By this time the other boys had crowded around, because they had heard Mr. Sprague and Billy talking, and boylike, feared that something interesting might happen without their knowing about it.
“Chinch-bugs,” Mr. Sprague replied.
“I never heard of their eating corn,” said Billy. “I thought they lived in houses only.”
107“Haw, haw, haw,” Mr. Sprague laughed. “Who ever heard of chinch-bugs in houses?”
The boys had become interested, and were looking for some argument, but Billy could not see anything funny about having his question laughed at, because he was sure that they lived in houses. He turned red in the face and retorted: “Why, Mr. Sprague, you must be joking; just the other day old Aunt Amy was scolding like a guinea because she said these bugs were all through her house. She was scrubbing her bedsteads with soapsuds so strong that it made my eyes water. She was scolding and scrubbing and sweating to beat the stir, and after watching her awhile I made up my mind that these bugs deserved careful attention. I told her to fumigate with sulphur, and explained to her how my father did it, but she was too angry to listen to any explanations.”
“What did she call the bugs?” Mr. Sprague asked.
Billy replied, “She called them chinch-bugs, — well, no, she didn’t either; she called them chinches for short.”
Mr. Sprague laughed some more and walked toward the barnyard fence where the feed-troughs were located; the boys followed him.
“Billy,” he said, “we are both right, but the trouble is that you are talking about one thing and 108 I about another. I am talking about chinch-bugs, which are field-bugs, but you are talking about chinches, which are bedbugs. They are both interesting kinds of bugs, but while yours is merely a sleep and peace-destroyer, mine is a bread-destroyer. If I had my choice, I would rather have your bug in my house than my bug in the cornfield, because I know how to get rid of chinches but do not know how to control the chinch-bugs.”
“Mr. Sprague, do you know that bedbugs carry diseases?” Frank Gates asked.
“I did not know that, Frank; is that so?”
“Yes,” all the boys answered; “we learned that in school and since then we would not allow one of those bugs around our house if we knew it was there.”
“Well, I guess you are right then, boys,” Mr. Sprague answered.
“Talking about the chinch-bugs, are they large enough for one to see them when they are on the corn?” the boys asked.
“They certainly are,” Mr. Sprague assured them.
“How do they look?” they asked.
“With their eyes, I reckon,” Mr. Sprague answered with a mischievous smile. The boys laughed, but insisted that he describe them. Mr. Sprague then told them that the full-grown ones were black with whitish wings and the young were reddish and wingless.
109
( After Webster, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr. )
Fig. 48. — “That the full-grown ones were black with whitish wings.” Enlarged.
( After Webster, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr. )
Fig. 49. — “While the young were reddish and wingless.”
By this time Harry Fulmer had become interested. Although Harry was one of those boys who said very little, he was a great favorite with the boys. He had the habit of not talking or asking questions until he had made up his mind what he wanted to find out. He would then ask his questions direct and in a way that could not be mistaken.
“Did you say there were many on your corn last summer, Mr. Sprague?” he asked.
“Yes, plenty of them,” Mr. Sprague answered.
“Did they bother your corn the summer before last?” he asked again.
110“Yes, very much. Ever since I can remember they damaged corn once every two or three years, but during the last three years they have been bad every summer, owing to dry weather.”
“Do you expect them next year?” Harry asked.
“I surely do unless we have a wet season.”
Fig. 50. — “Unless we have a wet season.”
“Where are the bugs now?”
Mr. Sprague laughed, “I do not know, but I reckon they all died last fall or froze to death when we had that cold snap early in December.”
“If they are all dead, then I do not see where your bugs can come from next year. If there are to be any bugs next year, then there must surely be 111 some of them staying somewhere over winter, if what we are taught in school is correct.”
“Now, Harry, that looks like good sense to me,” Mr. Sprague replied. “Where are the bugs now? Where do you suppose these frail creatures could hide to be able to live through snow, sleet, and ice, such as winter brings? What shelter protects them from the frosty air and biting winds? Now, boys, answer quick.”
Every boy looked from one to the other, but no one could answer the question.
“Listen, boys, there will be a farmers’ picnic in the grove back of the town hall at Kingston on January 4. I would like to find out where the chinch-bugs stay during the winter, and if you boys can find it out for me I will take all of you in my car and drive you to that meeting; it is twenty-one miles from here.”
“Hurrah!” they yelled, and threw their caps high in the air, each boy catching another boy’s cap. “We will surely find the bugs,” they said.
Ten minutes later, when Mr. Sprague was sitting in the house reading, he missed the noise of the boys’ playing. He looked through the window and saw a sight that made a big smile creep over his face. Under the old water oak sat the five boys, each and every one looking as grave as an owl and talking about a subject which, judging from their looks, 112 they must have thought a very weighty one.
Fig. 51. — “Under the old water oak sat the five boys.”
Mr. Sprague had entirely forgotten that he had asked them to find the bugs, and also his promise to take them to the farmers’ meeting. “Hm, boys will be boys,” he murmured to himself, and turned again to his reading. If he ever recalled his promise and thought that the boys had taken it in jest, as he meant it, he was mistaken. They were holding a powwow for the purpose of devising ways and means for finding out where the chinch-bugs stayed during the winter. They had to go to school during the week, but all of them felt sure that they 113 could meet under that water oak the following Saturday morning to start for a bug-hunt. It was getting late, and having completed their plans they left for their homes.
On the next Friday morning it was raining, and by noon the air had become so cold that every raindrop froze to ice. When the boys went to their beds that night they could hear the swishing of the frozen rain among the ice-covered branches of the trees. It did look as if there would be no bug-hunt the next day.
On Saturday morning when they awoke the sleet had stopped, the sky was clear, and the sun was rising in all his splendor. It was a beautiful world, with rainbows glittering on every ice-covered tree and bush. After an early breakfast they started for the water oak. During the week they had interested Mr. Minter, the pastor, in what they were trying to do, and he was waiting for them at the oak tree when they arrived.
They started for Mr. Blakeley’s farm because it was the most slovenly looking farm in that section, and they felt sure that it was the best place to look for the chinch bugs. “There is plenty of rubbish on his farm for the bugs to hide under during the winter,” they said.
Fig. 52. — “There is plenty of rubbish on his farm.”
When they came to the pasture bottom they found it flooded, with only a narrow ridge of dry land left by which they could reach 114 the uplands, where they expected to find the bugs. That ridge, however, was held by Jim Blakeley’s flock of geese. There were six mean ganders in the flock, and the way they hissed at them led the boys to believe that the geese were determined to defend that ridge. It became a question of taking the ridge by storm or retracing their steps and reaching the uplands by a long route. They might have stopped to think it over, but Harry Fulmer had made up his mind, and waving his stick high above his head he called Charge ! ! !” Up the ridge they 115 rushed like a pack of wolves. The geese, flapping their wings, began a retreat which soon became a rout. They scattered pell-mell off the ridge into the water below and swam away. When the boys reached the uplands they stopped and waited for Mr. Minter. When he came up he said, “Boys, I wish that they had been chinch-bugs.”
“We should be heroes then,” the boys replied.
“Yes,” said Harry, “we should have earned our ride already, for we surely routed them and scouted them, nor lost a single man.” The boys all laughed and walked on.
When they came to a wire fence at the edge of a cotton field Sammy exclaimed, “By the way, boys, I nearly forgot something. I have with me here little bottles with dead chinch-bugs in them, one bottle for each of you. The other evening papa happened to recall that he had gathered a lot of them last summer and put them in a bottle. He put them in these small bottles and asked me to give each of you one of them so you would know chinch-bugs when you met them and not make the mistake of taking a chipmunk or a field-mouse for one of them.”
With much laughter the boys took the bottles, agreeing that this was very thoughtful of Mr. Sprague. Each boy examined the bugs in his bottle with squinting eyes.
116When they had crossed the wire fence they were in a thick growth of bermuda grass. “It looks to me,” said Mr. Minter, “as though this would be a good place for them to spend the winter.”
“Under the ice?” the boys asked, surprised.
Mr. Minter explained, “There are many tufts of grass here that have not been soaked by the weather and under them the bugs finds shelter. Put your sticks into action and make a search.”
With the sticks they had cut when they started, they whipped the ice from the tufts of grass, then got down on their hands and knees to make a careful examination. After they had worked on that grass for a while Sammy called that he had found one. They all ran to the spot, and after they had compared the bug which Sammy found with those in their bottles they all agreed that it was a chinch-bug. Not being able to find more there, they crossed another fence into Mr. Blakeley’s old cornfield, full of stumps. Around every stump there was a mass of weeds and old dead grass and many of the stumps were covered with loose, shaggy bark. The boys were now happy, for they soon saw that their ride was earned. Under rubbish, matted grass, under stones and in the refuse on the terraces and in the field they found the chinch-bugs in abundance. Willie Foy found a lot of them in the old husks and behind the dried leaf boots of old corn-stalks that 117 were left in the field. When they had finished this field it was dinner-time, and they found a nice place on the old covered bridge to eat their lunches.
Fig. 53. — “And they found a nice place on the old covered bridge.”
They spent the afternoon roaming over a large part of the country, and when they came back to Sammy’s home with their bottles full of living chinch-bugs, Mr. Sprague was very much pleased. “You certainly must have found their winter homes,” he said with much surprise. “It means that we must clean our fields better in the fall than we have been doing,” he said.
118Mr. Sprague was so much pleased that he had learned so much about the winter homes of the chinch-bugs that he would never get through talking about it. When he met one of his neighbors he would say, “Do you expect to be bothered with chinch-bugs next year?”
“Yes, unless we should have a wet season,” the neighbor would reply.
“Well, let me tell you something,” Mr. Sprague would then say; “we do not give enough attention to the cleaning up of our fields in the fall.”
Of course the neighbor would then ask, “What has that to do with the chinch-bugs next year?” and laugh, thinking that Mr. Sprague had lost track of the subject.
Mr. Sprague would then explain how the bugs wintered in and about the old rubbish, grass, and refuse of crops left in the fields. Nearly every neighbor who listened to this story would, after a little thinking, exclaim, “That looks sensible to me because the worst spots in my fields always appear near stumps, stones, trash, and along terraces.”
Mr. Sprague would then call attention to the importance of knowing more about this bug, and urge that they all attend the farmers’ meeting at Kingston. “They will have a train there, showing livestock, grains, farm-machinery, and bugs; there will also be speakers,” he said. Some would then 119 say that the speakers at those meetings were bookworms and did not know how to guide a plow. Mr. Sprague would then tell them that most of the men that came as speakers from the Agricultural College had been reared on farms and had learned to plow and to do every other kind of work necessary on the farm. It takes a different man to run the farm. “They have no business to plow now,” he would say. “If plowing were their business, they would not know any more about bugs than I. I believe that I am a fairly intelligent man, and what I want is facts; when I have them I can put them into practice as well as anybody, and those fellows who spend their lives studying bugs know the bug facts even if they do not know how to guide a plow. If they spent their time plowing, they could not know so much about their special subjects. They are experts; do you get me?”
In most cases they did get his idea, and nearly every farmer of that neighborhood was at the farmers’ meeting. The day was lovely, and the boys enjoyed their ride in the big touring car.
Sure enough, among the speakers was a bugman, and this tickled the boys. When the program had been finished the chairman said that the meeting was open for any questions that any one wished to ask. It was surprising how many questions were asked about bugs, and especially chinch-bugs. The 120 boys listened closely to all the questions and also to the answers by the speakers.
“I am so glad to see that Mr. Jim Blakeley is here; I did not think that he would come,” said Mr. Sprague when the meeting was over.
“He and I were chatting down there in the grove a little while ago. I never saw any man so interested. I asked him how he liked the meeting, and he said that it was fine and that he had learned a number of good things. He seemed to feel satisfied that his old stump-field needed cleaning up, because he was sure, from what was said at the meeting, that it must offer the best kind of shelter for the bugs to pass the winter.”
About two weeks after the meeting Mr. Blakeley called at the home of Mr. Sprague. Will Brown, Walter Carey, and Fred Connor happened to call at the same time to spend the evening.
When a few neighbors meet like this to spend a pleasant evening, you know that generally every kind of subject is discussed, but this evening the talk drifted to chinch-bugs, and Will Brown said afterwards that he had never believed that one could spend so pleasantly an evening talking about bugs. It was Mr. Blakely who started it, and, in fact, he had come on purpose to talk to Mr. Sprague about this matter.
Mr. Blakely said, “The last two weeks I have 121 hardly done anything except clean my fields. I found the bugs all right, and I have a notion that the ’bugfeller’ at that meeting knew what he was talking about. He said that when the warm weather came along these bugs would fly away and hunt growing grasses, oats, wheat, and such for food. When they have found it and have settled down they lay eggs which hatch into the little reddish, young bugs that have no wings. Well, he said that they did much less damage in wet season; I have noticed that myself, and now, ahem! if we should have rainy spells I reckon I have done all the cleaning for nothing.”
“Very likely not,” said Mr. Sprague, “because there are other bad insects passing the winter in the same way. Then again, it is like insurance; you never know when your buildings may burn down, but you pay for the insurance just the same. If we only knew beforehand what the weather would be, then we could plan everything just right, couldn’t we?”
“Yes, of course,” Mr. Blakeley agreed, but continued, “that ‘bugfeller’ said that three different things could be done. One was the destruction of the winter quarters by cleaning, burning, plowing, and the like. Well, I did that, but the second thing he spoke about was burying. I don’t see how that could be done. Bury all the bugs? Piffle!”
122The other men could hardly keep from laughing at this. “He did not say burying,” Will Brown explained, “but he said barriers. When the wheat and oats are harvested the bugs spread to the cornfields for food. The young bugs cannot fly and have to crawl, and that is the reason that he suggested barriers between the bugs and the corn. The barrier may be a deep furrow thrown toward the bugs so that they have to climb its steep side before reaching the corn. The furrows can be improved by digging holes with a posthole digger about fifteen or twenty feet apart in the bottom of the furrow. The furrow must be kept clean and in good condition.”
“The best barrier, he said, was prepared as follows: around the field where the bugs are, and before they start to travel, make a smooth path and pour upon it a narrow line of road-oil, tar, or creosote. This line the bugs cannot, or will not, cross, provided the line is freshened from time to time. On the side of this line next to where the chinch-bugs are, postholes should be dug about twenty feet apart and from eighteen inches to two feet deep. The mouth of each hole should slope a little and should be so made that it will touch the line of road-oil, tar, or creosote. The material may be poured from a pot with a spout, in a stream about one-half inch thick.”
“I understand that,” said Mr. Blakeley, “but what was that spray?”
“Sprays have to be used when the corn is attacked by the old bugs as they come from winter quarters and by the young hatching from their eggs; also when somebody has been asleep and let the bugs travel to his corn from another field and has not stopped them with a barrier. He said that a good spray could be made with one-fourth ounce strong tobacco extract, one ounce good laundry soap, and one gallon of water. The tobacco can be omitted if it cannot be obtained. The bugs should all be wet, but care should be taken not to fill the ‘curl’ at the top of the corn with the spray.”
At this moment Sammy came into the room, yawned, and threw himself down in a large chair.
“Sammy,” said his father, “didn’t that speaker say that there were two kinds of chinch-bugs?”
Sammy had fallen asleep, but woke when his father asked the question and answered with a sleepy “No.”
“Well, what did he say?” his father asked, and they listened. From halfway down in slumberland they heard Sammy’s voice, and he answered as though he was speaking his piece in school, “He said there were two races of chinch-bugs, the long-winged race having wings as long as the body, and the short-winged race, having the wings much 124 shorter than the body when full grown. He said that the short-winged form was more inclined to grasses and the long-winged race is chiefly a corn-pest.”
“Have you seen both in your bug-hunts around here?” they asked. After waiting some time they heard a faint voice, “All that I have seen were the long-winged.”
“How many broods did he say there were during the season, Sammy?” Mr. Sprague asked again.
Sammy’s reply was a faint snoring, as if some one was sawing wood about half a mile away. They all laughed with considerable noise, but Sammy kept on snoring and did not hear it.
“I remember he said there were two broods, one in the small grain and the other in the corn,” Will Brown answered for Sammy.
Sammy’s snoring reminded the men that it was already late, and so they parted for their homes.
The people of the Sprague section had learned something very useful and interesting. They knew the habits and life of the chinch-bug and also the ways for controlling the pest. Some try to use all the methods, and others find that one or the other properly used holds the bugs in check. Mr. Blakeley’s farm looks like a different piece of land; he has cleaned up the brier patches and has pulled the stumps, and his fields, which looked so slovenly the 125 day when the boys stormed the ridge, now look cheerful and prosperous. “If these bugs intend to stay on my farm during the winter, they will surely have to be keen hunters to find a place for shelter.”
“We used to think that the chinch-bugs would drive us out of business,” Mr. Sprague says, “but it looks now as if we have put the bugs out of business. Not only that, but it has set us to thinking, and we are better farmers than we used to be. Of course, we still have chinch-bugs, but they are much more polite and considerate than they were several years ago.”
And all this good work started when Billy Burnet peeked into Mr. Sprague’s corn-crib that lovely December afternoon.