126 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 5 



demand for arsenicals. In former years it became the regular prac- 

 tice of cotton planters to contract for stocks of Paris green or London 

 purple exactly as they did for other plantation supplies. For many 

 years these stocks accumulated and the planters came to believe that 

 it was unnecessary to procure the poison. At the time of the invasion 

 of the boll weevil in Texas many of the large planters had heavy stocks 

 of Paris green with which they carried on experiments against the 

 new pest. In 1904-5 through the agitation of a charlatan, Paris green, 

 as a remedy of the boll weevil, attracted considerable attention. This 

 resulted in exhausting the poison held in the hands of the planters. 

 This was the situation at the time of the outbreak of 1911. Suddenly 

 an unprecedented dejnand for Paris green and other arsenicals arose. 

 In a few weeks the larger factories throughout the United States were 

 running day and night and in some cases shipping car loads to remote 

 southern points by express. From the city of New Orleans within 

 two weeks time about 800,000 pounds of arsenicals were shipped into 

 the Mississippi Yazoo Delta. 



The history of the activity of Alabama argillacea is rather complete 

 from 1793 down to 1881. The discovery of the effectiveness of Paris 

 green and the changes in plantation methods, to which reference has 

 already been made, seemed to have caused the cotton worm problem 

 to become of minor importance. At any rate, the available records 

 of the history of the insect since 1881 are of such meagerness as to 

 contrast strongly with full accounts of the earlier years. In order 

 to place on record the historj^ of the pest since the publication of the 

 Fourth Eeport of the Entomological Commission, the writer has been 

 at some pains to obtain records from numerous sources. Unfortu- 

 nately the information obtained is exceedingly incomplete. They 

 may be summarized as follows: 



1882 to 1890, practically no records found. 1890 seems to have 

 been a year of unusual abundance. This was especially indicated by 

 the appearance of the moth in great numbers in Canada. In 1895 

 there was also a flight of the moths in regions as far north as Evanston, 

 Illinois, but no special accounts of injury in the south are to be found. 

 In 1900 there was. a more or less general defoliation in the coast coun- 

 ties of Texas. In 1904 a late outbreak occurred in Texas and Louis- 

 iana but apparently did not extend east of that state; in 1907 in 

 restricted localities in Texas and, to some extent, in Louisiana. To 

 summarize, for thirty years the insect did not occur in sufficient num- 

 bers to attract attention except in six seasons. It is not surprising 

 therefore that the planters had generally come to look upon the species 

 as merely of historical interest. 



In the rather extensive early literature regarding the cotton worm 



