316 



From all information obtained on my trip, as well as from the records 

 published within the past fifteen years, it is evident that the field work 

 of the cotton worm investigation by the U. S. Department of Agricul- 

 ture and the U. S. Entomological Commission coincided with the end 

 of a period of a severe cotton worm visitation which culminated in the 

 year 1877. In 1881 the worms were not generally distributed, and in 

 the following years they were still more restricted. In the years 

 1889-1892 there was, however, a noticeable increase in the number of 

 worms although they were not nearly as destructive as in the years 

 1877-1879, nor did they spread over the entire cotton belt as in the 

 years mentioned. Some general application of remedies was practiced 

 in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 1889 and 1890, while 

 in soutbern Texas it was found necessary to continue the poisoning for 

 two years longer. Compared with the widespread and severe destruc- 

 tion brought about by the cotton worm previous to 1880 the last four- 

 teen years constituted a period of comparative immunity from cotton 

 worm injury. During this period there were years decidedly favorable 

 to the development of Aletia, but there are various reasons why, in 

 spite of favorable climatic conditions, the worms did not multiply and 

 spread to any considerable extent. There can be no question that the 

 change that has taken place in Southern agriculture is a very important 

 factor in the cotton worm question. Before entering upon my trip I 

 was of course aware that diversity of agriculture has taken a firm foot- 

 hold in the South, but I was not prepared for the magnitude of the 

 change brought about by diversified agriculture in the aspect of the 

 southern fields. 



Fourteen years ago, when I traversed the whole length of the cotton 

 belt, there was in the bottom lands and on the prairies of southern 

 Texas, in the Mississippi bottoms of Louisiana and Mississijipi, in the 

 canebrake region of Alabama — in fact just in those places which 

 have always been considered as the centers from which the cotton 

 worm spread over the rest of the cotton belt — hardly anything culti- 

 vated but cotton. To day, in the same regions, the cotton fields are 

 everywhere broken up by fields of corn and the present conditions 

 may best be illustrated by a single example: Mr. George Little, of 

 Columbus, Tex., had, in 1880, 500 acres of cotton under cultivation in 

 the '*bent" of the Colorado River. This year (1894) he has of the same 

 area 300 acres in corn, 100 acres in Johnson grass, and only 100 acres 

 in cotton. It is hardly necessary to say that this diminution of the 

 cotton acreage, and especially the breaking up of the immense cotton 

 fields of former years, has contributed largely to prevent an excessive 

 multiplication of the worms and consequently the migration of the 

 moths. 



Another point which must have no little contributed to the immunity 

 from, cotton worms is the change that has taken place in the cotton 

 plant itself since the development of the cotton seed oil industry. In 



