OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 17 



THE COTTON WORM. 



The growing of cotton is getting to be an important industry in 

 some of the southern counties of the State, and a few notes on the Cot- 

 ton-worm {Anomys icylina) will doubtless prove acceptable to many 

 a Missourian, as well as to such residents of the more southern States 

 into whose hands this Report may chance to fall. 



In June, 1872, at the organization, in St. Louis, of the National 

 Agricultural Congress, there were present many delegates from the 

 South. It was my privilege on that occasion to lecture before the 

 Congress on economic entomology, and to suggest, in answer to inqui- 

 ries from Gen. Wm. H. Jackson, of Nashville, Tenn., and Dr. J. O. 

 Wharton, of Terry, Miss., that the Paris green mixture which was doing 

 such good work in preserving our potato fields against the attacks of 

 the Colorado Potato-beetle, might prove equally efficient against the 

 ravages of the insect which takes the place of this potato enemy in 

 the cotton fields of the country. Having no opportunity to experi- 

 ment on the Cotton-worm, I tried the effect of the mixture on several 

 closely allied worms which occur in Missouri, and especially on the 

 Fall Army-worm (Rep. 3, Fig. 45,) in each case with most satisfactory 

 results. Feeling thus w^ell assured that the remedy would work ben- 

 eficially as an antidote to the Cotton-worm, and might prove of untold 

 value to the people of the South, 1 took occasion to read an essay on 

 that insect at the second annual meeting of the same National Agri- 

 cultural Congress, which took place at Indianapolis, Ind., the last of 

 May, 1873. and I give herewith some of the prefatory portions of that 

 essay : 



Gentlemen of the National AgriGidtural Congress : 



It was my pleasure, well nigh a year ago, to be with you at your 

 organization in the city from which I hail. Few things were more 

 characteristic of that reunion of the friends of Agriculture from dif- 

 ferent parts of our broad land, than the large representation from the 

 tSouth, and the mutual good-will and cordial fellowship which reigned 

 on all sides. There was manifested a due appreciation of science in 

 the honor paid to one [Com. M. F. Maury] who did much to make 

 us masters of the elements, and whom we all sorrow for as having 

 since left us for that world which knows nor sectional strife nor broth- 

 erly feud. There was also manifested a strong desire to profit by one 

 another's experiences, and it is for these reasons that I am led to offer 

 to the members from the South a suggestion which may prove of lit- 

 tle service, or, per contra.^ of the utmost value. 



I gave you last year some idea of the immense sums which the 

 farmers of this country lose by insect depredations, and it is unneces- 

 sary here to enlarge upon the subject. You, as cotton-growers, are 

 well enough aware of these ravages, for in a single fortnight last sum- 

 mer, one single species — the Cotton-worm — ate up something like 

 twenty million dollars' worth of cotton for you. 



