Show FIGHTING BUGS prairie farmers adopt unique tactics against the pests old grasshopper time brought forcibly to mind again the troublesome insects captured by the bushel the dry weather which succeeded the early rains has brought out the prairie farmers enemy the chinch bug in full force again As alie wheat has been cut the bugs have gone into the cornfields and in many sections of central kansas arc doing damage again the schemes evolved by the settlers for the destruction of the tiny insects which are 0 harmful says alie st louis globe democrat are alike ingenious ing enious and effective the only difficulty being the overwhelming numbers of the pests when millions on millions infest every square rod there is little hope for effectual extermination the farmers are among other things reviving the plans of the old per days and are using coal oil or kerosene with more or less success the scheme includes a long trench reaching across the edge of the field which it is proposed to protect at intervals are sunken cans covered by cone shaped piles of dirt with a hole at the top the bugs follow the trench and pour in a stream into the cans at alie bottom of the cans is coal oil which serves both to kill the creatures and make them inflammable A torch touched to each produces a mimic volcano for a time but leaves the trap empty and ready for another collection of hups one farmer in northern kansas piled up eight bushels of dead bugs in one day and did not work hard either this system can at best be but a temporary one to bridge over a short spell of dry weather as the expense is too great to allow of protecting any large territory the larger portion of the farmers continue to have faith in the bacilli of chancellor snows discovery and thousands of boxes of bugs are being sent to the state university to exchange for infected insects that may spread disease ana death among the fields some counties have stations in charge e of experienced men at a cost of 60 to a month to propagate the disease and furnish the bugs to the farmers at home during the pat few months of infection have been sent out to the individual farmers of kansas missouri and oklahoma in addition fifty auxiliary distributing stations were established m kansas and uri thirty eight t n and missouri the demand for infection from southern kansas has materially decreased recently which is s aid to be the result of the disappearance of bugs in the sections where infection was used extensively soon after its discovery in 1893 there were 1303 applications from individual farmers and last year only a figure not likely to be exceeded this season the it alik ll ik all allu ms aou A if off from 1123 to n die tho et fral and western counties kep u Jc mands alie fifty su plied au itic of farmers givia i total of with more aroi tha central station or altogether about inada written reports year s work and 55 per cent were favorable showing an immense saving to crops by the use of the infection A field near the laboratory flave the station an opportunity to anther boxes of as a reserve stock for early distribution for use in the wheat fields this spring and summer most of these came into central kansas and did work experiments made last fall in infecting chinch bugs with artificial culture of esporo bichum showed equal results with the ordinary method of infecting bugs and it ia a preat advantage in supplying farmers early in the spring with the necessary amount of infected bugs experiments peri ments are being tried of spreading infection by alie spraying of sprouting spores and if successful it is that infection may prove successful in dry weather this has been the greatest impediment to complete success in experiments up to the present time the corn crop is one on which alie farmers place the most reliance and it is at present in a condition to promise a magnificent yield but if the bugs are to be allowed to roam from the fields of wheat in to those of corn and lop off a half dozen or more rows on each side it means a tremendous loss in the aggregate gre gate the little creatures work an army like regularity and accomplish com a devastation as extensive as it is serious the fight to save the fields is important as well as interesting |