16 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



CHAPTER II. 

 PAST HISTORY OF THE COTTON-WORM. 



The materials for the early history of the cotton- worm and its ravages 

 are scanty enough. The literature, as may be seen by reference to the 

 bibliographical list, has been far from extensive, and, from the very 

 nature of the subject, so utilitarian in its character that all points not 

 relating directly to remedy have been looked upon as useless. This, 

 taken in connection with the fact of the recentness of all papers of value, 

 offers but a poor outlook for an exhaustive history of the cotton-worm of 

 long ago. Yet such material has not been entirely wanting. Scraps from 

 this place and scraps from that, when patched together, have made a tissue 

 containing many tangible points of information, and afford a fair running 

 account of the earlier appearances of Aletia. As we near the present 

 date, however, our sources of information become more varied, and the 

 information itself more accurate, until for the last fifteen years the ma- 

 terial for a nearly complete chronology is at hand. The main sources of 

 information have been three in number: First, what the literature con- 

 tains upon this point; second, the answers of correspondents to ques- 

 tions 1, la, 16, and 3 of the 1878 circular letter (see introduction) ; third, 

 the regular monthly reports of the statistical correspondents of this de- 

 partment upon the condition of crops, as contained in the "Monthly Re- 

 ports of the Department of Agriculture," from 1866 to 1876, inclusive, 

 and in the occasional bulletins of the department since 1876. 



The first important point to be cleared up in the history of the cotton- 

 worm is, whether it is really indigenous to this country or whether it 

 has been introduced from abroad. On this point Mr. Grote has the fol- 

 lowing : * 



Now Hiibner describes the moth of the cotton-worm at first as from Baliia. Suffi- 

 cient testimony as to the indentity of our insect with one destructive to the West 

 Indian, Mexican, and Brazilian perennial cotton is at hand, and the fact is established. 

 In a classificatory point of view the affinities of the cotton-worm are with Southern 

 rather than with Northern forms of its family, as I have already pointed out. 



So far as the past history goes, it upholds Mr. Grote in the belief that 

 Aletia is really an indigene of South America and the West Indies, and 

 creates a probability that its spread in this country was originally the 

 result of an accidental introduction or of immigration on the part of the 

 moth. Were the insect indigenous to this country its history would be 

 coeval with the history of cotton culture within the present limits of the 

 United States, but, upon referring to the records, we find that this is 

 not so. Short staple cotton was grown quite extensively as a garden 



*Proc. A. A. A. S. XXIII (1874), Part II, p. If,. 



