INSECT ENEMIES OF COTTON. 



BY FRANKLIN SHERMAN, JR., ENTOMOLOGIST, 



INTRODUCTION. 



North Carolina produces approximately 600,000 bales of cotton 

 each year. Allowing an average of 500 pounds per bale, and 10 

 cents per pound for the cotton, we have $30,000,000 as the average 

 yearly value of our cotton crop. In the acreage devoted to its pro- 

 duction in the State, cotton is second only to corn, but as corn is 

 largely grown in every county and as cotton is grown commercially 

 in only about two-thirds of the counties, it is seen that cotton is 

 overwhelmingly the most important money crop in those counties 

 which are well within the cotton belt. 



Insects are estimated to destroy approximately one-tenth of our 

 total value of crop products each year. If cotton suffered its pro- 

 portional one-tenth, of damage, the loss in this State would amount 

 to $3,000,000. But at present we do not believe that the damage 

 amounts to this much, so to be conservative we will take away a 

 million dollars from that estimate, and we have remaining the sum 

 of $2,000,000 which the cotton crop alone of North Carolina con- 

 tributes each year to satisfy the appetite of its insect enemies, and 

 we believe that the real and actual loss is fully equal to that sum. 



At present the number of serious insect enemies of cotton in the 

 State is not large, and usually their attacks are not especially no- 

 ticeable, but each year brings to this office a number of inquiries 

 and complaints concerning Cotton-lice, Boll-worms, Red Spider and 

 others. Last year (1907) there was considerable complaint of Root- 

 louse. Meanwhile the Cotton Boll-weevil has spread from Texas 

 across Louisiana and is now in western Mississippi, and bids fair to 

 continue its march until it occupies the entire cotton region, includ- 

 ing North Carolina. 



While the number of pests which are really serious is not large 

 at present, there are a considerable number which under peculiarly 

 favorable conditions might at any time become very much more 

 destructive than they are now. Several which have attracted atten- 

 tion in the last few years were not previously on record in this State 

 as pests of cotton at all. Several farmers, in making complaint of 

 insect injury to cotton, have remarked that their loss from insects is 

 growing heavier each year. We are fully convinced, therefore, 

 that our estimate of $2,000,000 damage to the cotton crop of the 



