A couple of Julys ago, I drove across the U.S., shunning the Interstates and sticking to back roads. I was struck by the absence of bugs on my windshield in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa. In the West, in the summer, you have to stop every fifty miles or so to clean your windshield if you're driving in river bottoms where there's enough water for serious vegetation. In the Midwest, there was water and vegetation galore but essentially no bugs. I guess that they really put the pesticides to all the corn and soybeans.