CHINCH BUG. One of the worst enemies of the corn- and wheat-grower is this tiny insect, about one-sixth of an inch in length, blackish in color, and with white wing covers marked with a dark spot and a Y-shaped line. It attacks corn as well as wheat, destroying it has been estimated sometimes as much as $60,000,000 worth of grain in the Miss issippi Valley in a single year. The bugs spread over fields in enormous numbers, sucking the sap of the young plants.
They are found all over the United States and in Canada, Central America, and the West Indies.
Methods of fighting the pest are to burn the rubbish in which they pass the winter, and to plow a deep furrow around the field and fill it with coal-tar or petroleum to prevent their entrance. Scientific name, Blissus leucopterus; family, Lygaeidae.