270 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



left standing, the benefit being worth $14.56 per acre, or over 

 twenty-nine times the cost of the work. It is better to plow out 

 the stalks than to cut them, particularly in the far South, as the 

 stalks will frequently sprout out in the late fall and thus furnish 



FIG. 200. Bracon mettitor Say, one of the most important parasites of the 

 boll weevil larvae much enlarged. (After Hunter and Hinds, U. S. 

 Dept. Agr.) 



food for the late weevils, or will sprout in early spring and furnish 

 food for those first emerging from hibernation. For the same 

 reasons all volunteer cotton should be destroyed. 



It is evident that the thorough defoliation of the plants by the 

 cotton leafworm will secure much the same result as the destruc- 

 tion of the stalks, by removing the food supply of the weevil. 

 Planters should not poison the leafworms, therefore, when they 

 appear during the latter part of the season in fields injured by the 

 weevil, for though formerly much dreaded they are now a great 

 aid in preventing the increase of the weevil in fall. 



It has been demonstrated that injury by the weevil is never so 

 severe where cotton is planted after some other crop, this being 

 due to the fact that the weevils do not fly far from their hibernating 

 quarters in the spring. 



