48 EXPERIMENTS ON THE COTTON-WORM. 
The Cotton-Worm (Aletia xylina) appeared in this vicinity the latter 
part of August. In many other parts of the State it appeared earlier, 
and had a much longer time to depredate. I traveled along the line of 
the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, stopping at half a dozen places, and 
found the worms in some places in the prairie in large numbers and 
doing considerable damage in August. I did not revisit that section, 
and therefore do not know to what extent the ravages were pushed. At 
that time the conditions there, as well as here, were most favorable to 
the multiplication of the insects; it was very warm, and rain was falling 
at very short intervals. Whilst the cotton there was late in starting 
and the fall was favorable for its maturity, the Cotton-Worm had an 
unusually good beginning and prospect. The indications at that time 
were that much damage would be inflicted by them. 
The field near here, in which I first found the worms, and in which I 
observed them through the season after their appearance, was one that 
had been cultivated negligently. There was in it a large quantity of 
‘crab grass,” which furnished lurking places for moths. Other fields 
separated from this by only a short distance, in one or two places only 
by a fence and road, were scarcely attacked at all. I inferred from 
what I saw that careful, clean cultivation contributes largely to the 
immunity of the crop from the depredations of these pests, and therefore 
pays. Most of the land in this field is undulating; a small part lies 
along the bed of a stream which flows freely in winter and spring, but 
becomes dry in summer; this is flat, level land. The undulating land 
was a sandy loam, quite open, porous and friable, allowing water to sink 
through it with great ease. The bottom had somewhat more of stiffness 
and compactness. I am thus careful to mention the characteristics of 
these soils, because it would appear that the undulating lands would 
furnish more favorable habitations for ants and some other insects sup- 
posed to devour Cotton-Worms. It is a fact that the undulating lands 
had far more ants than the “‘bottom”; but it is also true that there were 
more Cotton- Worms on the undulating lands. Where the ants abounded, 
there the Cotton-Worms abounded also. This fact contradicted my ex- 
pectation, but the fact stands true nevertheless. I have no explanation 
of the relatively diminished numbers of worms on the flat lands, unless. 
the following observations account for it: (1) The cotton was larger on 
the level land, the leaves larger, coarser, and apparently tougher. (2) 
There were many more spiders on the lowlands. Several times I saw 
spiders eating worms as they became quiescent, having spun a few 
threads about themselves and rolled the leaf just before becoming pup. 
During the warm, wet weather in August and the earlier part of Sep- 
tember the worms increased rapidly, especially on the undulating lands. 
Before the middle of September the weather became settled, clear, and 
warm. When the second brood of worms formed moths, thousands of 
them could be found in the daytime concealing themselves in the dense 
and tall grass that had grown on the cotton-rows, and yet the next 
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