STATISTICS OF LOSSES. 63 



STATISTICS OF LOSSES. 



Iii estimating the amount of injury to the cotton crop of the entire 

 cotton-growing section, or a single State, for a given year or a series of 

 years, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain anything more than an approxi- 

 mate result. In the first place, the area under cultivation is so large, 

 and the localities of severest injury so scattered, even in the same county, 

 that the record of a single observer, or even two or three, will hardly suf- 

 fice to give the true average for the whole county, and the same remarks 

 will apply as well in an attempt to make up the State average. There 

 are many minor considerations entering into the calculation, which, if 

 not carefully weighed, will tend to perceptibly change the final figures. 



In numbers of instances we have reported, for a given year, the loss 

 of the entire crop, which, perhaps, for the whole county may only repre- 

 sent a loss of 60 to 70 per cent. As will be shown hereafter, the more 

 forward the crop the less liablility there is to its being overtaken by dis- 

 aster. If, however, the crop is grown upon low, wet land, or has been 

 subject to an undue amount of rainfall, or worse, has had only careless 

 or imperfect cultivation, the percentage of loss will be much higher than 

 in more favorable localities, or under more favorable conditions, and an 

 estimate based on returns from such localities would be far from the cor- 

 rect one. This is shown by reports from different parts of the same 

 county, one planter placing the loss at one-third, while another states 

 that the damage will hardly reach a twentieth, which may be called a 

 " slight injury." 



In some years the cotton is affected by rust to a greater or less 

 extent. 



In Lowndes County, Alabama, in 1866 there was a loss of 30 per cent., 

 owing to the lateness of the cotton over a considerable area, caused by 

 old seed having been planted ; and in the same county, in 1873, wet 

 weather and the worms together caused almost a complete failure ; the 

 wet weather was responsible, in this case, for 22 per cent, of the loss. 



In portions of Louisiana, in 1841, the greatest losses resulted from in- 

 jury to quality rather than quantity from litter and excrement dropped 

 by worms upon the open bolls. Frequently other insects are responsi- 

 ble for a portion of the damage the aphis, the cut- worm or the boll- 

 worm; and while their injuries are, comparatively speaking, small, still 

 they should be taken into account as far as possible. In consideration 

 of all these causes of loss, as they are more than likely to be charged 

 to the account of the cotton-worm by the local observers, after getting 

 as correct an estimate as possible from data furnished, it is necessary to 

 place the percentage somewhat lower to be within bounds. 



YEARS OF LOSSES. 



Many of the "oldest inhabitants" remember the year 1825 as one of 

 severe injury, the reports varying from 33 per cent, to almost total de- 



