Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1888 [PAGE 185]

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188

UNIVEESITY OF ILLINOIS.

Garman; of the anatomy and histology of certain crustaceans of subterranean habit by myself; and of the leaf mites of the State by Professor Garman.

ENTOMOLOGY.

The entomological work of the past two years has been almost wholly economic in its objects; but, incidental to the study of insect injuries to agriculture, a considerable mass of information and material has been accumulated of more general entomological interest. The purely economic work has been extraordinarily heavy and exacting, due especially to a wide-spread and very destructive outbreak of the chinch bug, now but just disappearing. We have kept the infested area, both in southern and northern Illinois, under inspection during the whole two years, making repeated visits to selected localities for comparative observations in the field. At Edgewood, in Effingham county, and at Tonti, in Marion county, we have conducted field experiments for the protection of wheat against chinch-bug injury, in the former instance with great success, in the latter with only partial results, owing to the winterkilling of the grain. At the Laboratory we have made numerous tests and experiments with insecticides. During the summer and autumn of 1888, we have collected a very large amount of information from every part of the State concerning the effect on the chinch bug of different crops and combinations of crops, with especial reference to wheat culture; and have collated, tabulated and discussed this information, deriving from it important practical generalizations with respect to farm management during the progress of a chinch-bug uprising. We have also diligently studied three forms of contagious disease to whose virulent activity in the southern part of the State is chiefly due the rapid disappearance of the larger part of the chinch-bug hosts infesting that region,— a difficult and laborious research which is still in progress. Next to the chinch bug, the Hessian fly and the corn plant louse, have received the largest share of our attention. During both summers periodical sowings of wheat were made in southern Illinois on selected plots, from harvest to the usual seeding time in fall, to determine more precisely the summer history of the fly. Those of 1887 failed because of the extreme drouth, but those of 1888 confirmed the results of similar experiments made by us in 1886. Laboratory experiments with this insect are now in progress. The corn plant louse we have studied by careful field observation and by continuous breeding experiments in the Laboratory, made especially during fall and spring. These experiments have determined the spring and winter history of the root louse; and others made by enclosing hills of corn in the field with large gauze-covered frames have thrown much light on the mid-summer