The Bulletin. 13 



planted the following spring would be much less troubled than if the 

 grass and weeds had stayed on all through the previous fall and 

 winter. As a preventive of Cut-worms it would be better to have 

 the ground bare all winter and plow it once or twice in the mean- 

 time, but that might not be good practice unless Cut-worms were 

 exceptionally bad on the place, and we must so adapt our measures 

 against the insects as to make them fit into a good scheme of farming. 

 By delaying the planting until late in the spring, the early-maturing 

 Cut-worms will be nearly or entirely grown and will, therefore, do 

 less injury. Very late planting may not be advisable on account of 

 short seasons, early frost, or on account of Boll-worm, which is worst 

 late in the season, but it is one of the possible means of avoiding 

 Cut-worms. Frequent cultivation will disturb the Cut-worms and 

 tend to drive them away, and will cause the plant to grow rapidly and 

 recover from injury, while good fertilization aids in the same di- 

 rection. 



But if we must put a piece of spring-plowed sod or weedy land 

 into cotton, and wish to plant at the normal season, there is still a 

 method (not always easy or entirely satisfactory perhaps) by which we 

 may combat the Cut-worms. When the land is plowed in the spring 

 much of their food is destroyed and they become hungry. It is then, 

 after breaking and harrowing the land and before the cotton is 

 planted, that it is possible to poison them. Clover or other green 

 and succulent vegetation may be poisoned with Paris Green and dis- 

 tributed through the fields as a bait to the worms. The clover 

 may be sprayed with poison as it stands and then cut ; or perhaps the 

 better and more thorough plan would be to cut it and dip it into a 

 barrel of the poisoned solution. The Paris Green for this purpose 

 should be thoroughly mixed with water at the rate of about one pound 

 to the barrel (40 to 50 gallons) of water. Arsenate of lead may be 

 used instead of Paris Green, at the. rate of five or six pounds to the 

 barrel. Paris Green and wheat bran have been used in gardens, at 

 the rate of about one ounce of the poison to two or three pounds of 

 the bran. A mash made of bran, Paris Green and water, and 

 sweetened with molasses, has also been used by gardeners. But in 

 field operations, with cotton grown on a large scale, the main prac- 

 tices to be relied upon are (1) the avoidance of cotton after sod or 

 weeds, and (2) fall plowing (as early as convenient), if such land 

 must be put into cotton in the spring. The poisoning methods will 

 often be too expensive and too uncertain for use on a large scale in 

 cotton fields. 



For further discussion of the methods mentioned against Cut- 

 worms the reader is referred to what is said under the head of 

 Rotation (p. 4), Plowing (p. 5), Preparation of Soil (p. 5), Time 

 of Planting (p. 6), Planting Excess of Seed (p. 6), Fertilization 

 (p. 7), and Cultivation (p. 7). 



