22 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



fraction from the particular patented combination, ceases to infringe 

 upon it. It will therefore be utterly impossible for the patentees to 

 enforce the penalty for infringement without proof that precisely the 

 same ingredients and combination, as patented, were used ; and to get 

 such proof will, I take it, be no easy matter ; for were it, we should 

 hear of hundreds of thousands of prosecutions where now we hear 

 not of a single one. 



The Royall mixture is a good one, and it seems to me th^t the 

 Messrs. Royall & Son could do a very good business by preparing and 

 putting it on the market at a reasonable profit, without attempting to 

 x)btain besides a royalty for its use. In a circular lately issued, any 

 number of testimonials as to the satisfaction it has given are produced ; 

 and Mr. Royall tells us that " a machine has been invented (which it is 

 hoped will be in readiness by the time the next worm season comes) 

 by means of which the remedy can be applied to three rows at a 

 time and upon about twenty-five acres per day. It is worked by two 

 horses and one hand, (the driver,) with a seat upon the vehicle, and 

 with the axle curved so as not to injure the plant of the middle row in 

 passing over. It can be attached to the hind wheels of any ordinary 

 wagon, thus reducing the cost of same." Also, that " It takes from 

 fifteen to twenty pounds of mixed material to an acre of cotton from 

 four to five feet high, for the first application. For the second appli- 

 cation upon the new growth, about one-third only of this quantity is 

 required." 



IIIBERNATldx OF THE INSECT. 



The question as to whether the Cotton-worm hibernates as a moth 

 or as a chrysalis has again been very fully discussed ;»r(9 andc6>w; and 

 it does not speak well for entomological knowledge in the South that 

 this important feature in the life-history of so notorious an insect has 

 not long since been very definitely and irrefutably settled. In my 

 second Report I showed that analogy, as well as the evidence of the 

 more reliable observers, indicated that the winter was passed in the 

 moth state ; and such I still firmly believe to be the case. Mr. W. P. 

 Reese, of Selma, Ala., both by letter to myself, and in numerous pub- 

 lished articles, has strenuously argued that it is passed in the chrysa- 

 lis state; upon which argument he basis a pet preventive remedy, 

 which is to destroy these chrysalides in the winter time. Mr. Reese 

 'falls into the error— committed by so many when first they begin the 

 study of natural history — of too readily generalizing from isolated 

 facts. Certain moths which he bred having died in confinement 

 within seventy-two hours after leaving the chrysalis, ergo the life of 

 4:he moth is limited to that period, ergo it can not pass the winter. 



