wet backward spring and well distributed summer rains have saved Iowa from extensive chinch-bug losses this year. The bugs have been reported, however, in injurious numbers over limited areas, in various parts of the state. There probably is no year when there are not bugs enough in many localities to do much harm, if the climatic conditions are favorable, and, as we have noway of knowing when a chinch-bug year is coming until it is upon us, it is exceedingly important that some systematic method of combating this evil be fixed upon by the farming communities.