EXPERIMENTS ON THE COTTON-WORM. 5o 
must begin his vigilance by the 4th of July. The crops are laid by 
about this date, and a season of rest and negligence occurs on the south- 
ern farm. To guard against this danger, a part of this grateful rest 
must be given to inspection. The first mother moth is apt to lay her 
eggs all near together, or, if disturbed, does not fly far. The worms 
being thick, and occupying small territory, are easily destroyed. 
When I reached the field of battle they were scattered for miles and 
only afew inaplace. To see the effect of the kerosene I was com- 
pelled to collect the worms from a considerable space around, to the 
stalks I proposed to sprinkle. This was September 5, having received 
information only a day before, whilst preparing to go farther south. 
In no one spot could I find them thick, or army-worm fashion, yet there 
were very few fields, or spots in the fields, in which worms or pup were 
not to be found, and the flies were literally everywhere. At night the 
flies came in numbers wherever there was a light. When pointed out 
to the people the general information was that that particular fly had 
been around the lamps fora month. This agreed well with the infor- 
mation of Mr. J. Walker, on whose place they first appeared. It was 
about the middle of August they (he and his tenants) first oberved the 
ragged leaves in numerous: localities, and the last of August before 
worms were noticed by farmers a mile or so further off. The worms then 
observed by farmers, the 10th to 15th of August, were a second brood, 
and those I found at work September 5th must have been a third gen- 
eration. To have comnbated the evil at this date would have required 
considerable outlay and horse apparatus for poisoning the fields. I could 
get none of the planters to try it, because of the general impression at 
this date (5th to 15th of September) that the worms were not injurious. 
In fact, many rejoiced to see them. They regarded them as checks to 
the luxuriant growth of weeds and leaves, and thought they would pro- 
mote opening of the cotton, generally so backward. An early frost 
would have caught the most of the cotton unopened. As it actually 
turned out, the fall was very late and protracted into even the usual 
winter, and if the worms had been kept back, the top crop, which not 
often matures here fully, would have been enormous. 
“Experiment No. 1 was made with a very weak kerosene emulsion: 
60 parts of water to 1. The emulsion itself had been prepared with 1 
quart of oil to 1 pint of milk. More milk was added to perfect the but- 
ter—about half pint, warm. This application killed all the worms 
sufficiently wetted with it; cotton leaves and stock thoroughly drenched 
without any apparent injury; surviving worms next day found feeding 
on leaves as if nothing had happened. 
Experiment second: Same with 30 parts of water. The least drop of 
this on a worm sickened him. So many were killed that the few escap- 
ing I concluded had not been touched. Practically, but few of the leaves 
could be wet on the under side. I used a fine fountain pamp, of patent 
1878. But many of the leaves were found spotted from the kerosene. 
My emulsion, I fear, was not perfect, and probably had some free oil. 
