INSECTS INJURIOUS TO COTTON 



241 



Inasmuch as the moths prefer to lay their eggs on corn-silk, 

 cotton may be very effectively protected by the use of strips of 

 late corn and cow-peas, planted through the cotton so as to act as a 

 trap crop. Leave vacant strips four or five rods wide across the 

 fields when planting cotton. About June 1st plant these with 

 alternate rows of Mexican June corn and cow-peas. This will bring 

 the corn into silk about the first of August and will attract the 

 moths to lay their eggs upon it instead of the cotton, while the 

 cow-peas will furnish both food and shelter to the moths. Corn 

 should never be planted with cotton when cotton is planted, for 

 instead of acting as a trap crop it merely furnishes food upon 

 which the worms 

 multiply during the 

 early season and 

 forces those of the 

 third generation to 

 the cotton. The 

 strips of corn and 

 peas should be cut 

 as soon as the 

 worms on them be- FIQ 204 _ The moth of the bollworm or corn ear- 

 come fairly grown worm enlarged one-fourth. (After Quaintance 

 and Brues, U. S. Dept. 



and the land plowed 

 to destroy any which may have pupated. " On large plantations the 

 planting of small areas of corn here and there in the fields is prac- 

 ticable. Such early crops as potatoes, oats, or wheat may be 

 followed by corn and cow-peas with practically the same results." 



The Cotton-boll Cutworm * 



The larva of this species is a very common feeder upon the 

 foliage of cotton and late in the season bores into the bolls in 

 much the same manner as the boll worm. Cotton is but one 

 of a long list of food-plants, however, as it is a common pest 

 of sugar-beets, corn, wheat, cabbage, potato, asparagus, salsify, 

 peach, raspberry, violet, cucumber, tomato, turnips, pea, rape, 

 pigweed, cot ton wood, and grasses according to Chittenden. 

 It occurs commonly throughout the states east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



* Prodenia ornithogalli Guen. Family Noctuidce. See Sanderson, I.e., 

 and F. H. Chittenden, Bulletin 27, n. s., Div. Ent., U. S. Dept. Agr., p. 64. 



