Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1907 — “THE GREEN BUG.” [ARTICLE]

“THE GREEN BUG.”

Oats Are Covered With the Little Insect. IS HE THE 6ENUINE DESTROYER? \ Professor at Purdue Says tha Bug la Harmless and No Fears Need Be Had of It By Farmers.

While the farmers of near Kentlandand other parts of Newton county complained three or four weeks ago .of the “green bag” making its appearance in their oat fields, it was only the first of. the present week that anything haß been heard of it about Rensselaer. Now neaidy or quite all the farmers who have examined their oats find the bug in profusion on the blades. Some have thought this is the same bug that has done so much damage in southwest to growing crops, but samples were sent from about Kentland to the “bag mandat Purdue and he stated that no fears need be entertained; that the bug was harmless and had been here for ten years or more, although it has not been generally noticed until now. The reports of the ravages of the bug in the southwest are said to have been greatly exaggerated also and were possibly sent out to influence the markets.

While the report of the Purdue bugologist apparently sets to rest the question of its need to be feared, yet a few of the alarming reports regarding it may not be uninteresting: In sections of Oklahoma it is aaifl the bug has ruined almost the entire wheat and oats crop. They are very small in size bat great on the damage wrought, it is said, working most in cool, damp weather and disappearing when warm, sunshiny weather comes. It is they suck every partiole of the vitality from the blade aha stalk and it soon withers and dies. A dispatch to an Indianapolis paper from Petersburg, Ind., under date of June 18, says of the pest:

Warm weather has killed nearly all the army worms in this vicinity, but the depredations of preen bugs and cut worms make the damage done by the army worm insignificent. Not hundreds, but thousands of acres of oats in this county have fallen a prey to the little green bug, and the pest is spreading. Not an oats field in this vicinity has escaped, and it is feared now that the crop, although of nearly twice the acreage of last year, will fall far behind in yield Damaged fields can not be plowed under and planted in com because it is too late to prepare the ground. Cut worms are attacking the corn Jin great numbers. Brown rust bas appeared in the wheat fields, but as muckrof the crop is almost matured the damage will be only slight. Nearly one-fourth of the corn crop is yet to be plauted in this county.

The same Indianapolis paper states: A sample of oats brought to the office of A. W. Thomson, an Indianapolis grain broker, from the western part of Marion county, showed the grain to be mil of “green bugs.” They were not any ordinaryl little bug, but were the grain aphis which has caused so much damage in the fields of the Southwest. After thoroughly examining; the sample of oats, Mr. Thompson said: “Farmers are complaining that their oats have suffered from too much rain. They say the oats are turning brown apd rusting. That is not the fact. The damage is being caused by the same green bug that did so much damage in Oklahoma, Texa and other Southwestern grain states, and if many fields are like the sample that was brought here, there will be extensive damages done to Indiana oats by that same Tittle pest.