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The Bulletin. 



Birds, Meadow Lark (or Field Lark), Sparrows, Cat Bird, Mocking 

 Bird, Brown Thrasher, Blue Bird and Kobin. These, in the course 

 of a season, and especially when, rearing their young, pick up many a 

 juicy Cut-worm. The common and much-despised toad is also a 

 helper, for he comes forth from his hiding place at dusk and Cut- 

 worms are one of the regular items in his bill of fare. Certain 

 predaceous insects like the Ground-beetles also attack and devour 

 Cut-worms. Parasitic flies sting and deposit their eggs within the 

 bodies of Cut-worms and these eggs, hatching to maggots, eventually 

 cause the death of the Cut-worm. There are also certain fungous 

 and bacterial diseases which kill a considerable number. 



All these natural enemies, while not by any means preventing all 

 damage by Cut-worms, at least act as a check upon them, and we be- 

 lieve it proper that the cotton grower should know them. 



Fig. 4.— Adult moth of the Black Cut-worm. Natural size. 

 (After Riley and Howard, Bur. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr.) 



Summary. — Cut-worms are the larva? of night-flying moths. They 

 pass the winter as larva?, eat ravenously in the spring, become mature, 

 pupate, and emerge as moths in early summer or fall. June, 

 September and October seem to be the principal months for egg- 

 laying. Eggs are laid in weedy or grassy fields, after which the 

 moths die. The larva? pass the winter in a partly grown condition in 

 the fields. With these points clearly understood it will be easy to 

 comprehend the following remedial suggestions: 



REMEDIES. 



As the eggs are laid in weedy and sod lands, cotton planted on 

 land just from sod or weeds will almost surely suffer, as the Cut- 

 worms are already in the soil when the cotton is planted. Therefore 

 the first consideration is to have cotton follow some cultivated crop. 

 If cotton must come after a growth of grass or weeds, then, by plow- 

 ing the land in the fall, many Cut-worms will be killed by exposure 

 or starvation before the cotton is planted in spring. If the land be 

 plowed before the fall moths have laid their eggs (before September 

 20th for example), then the moths will deposit their eggs in other 

 fields, some cover crop could be sown in October or November which 

 would cover the ground and prevent leaching, and the cotton crop 



