68 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



Wilcox, Monroe, Lowndes, Montgomery, Bullock, Pickens, Greene, 

 Crenshaw, and Conecuh, the last four lying just outside the lines of 

 heaviest production, as indicated in the Annual Report of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture for 1876.* 



Montgomery County produced in 1869, according to the Mnth Census, 

 25,000 bales in round numbers ; add 25 per cent, to bring this production 

 up to an average of 14 years, and the figures are 31,500 bales. From 

 the reports of local observers, we find a fair estimate for a destructive 

 year would be 30 per cent, for the county, or 9,450 bales. Taking the 

 percentages of loss in the other 12 counties, in the same manner, and 

 finding the number of bales they represent, the sum total of loss in the 

 counties named above is found to be 56,790; dividing this decimally by 

 the total crop of the 13 counties for an average year (or 224,700 bales), 

 we find the average percentage of loss to be 25.2. But this percentage 

 cannot be taken as correct in regard to the State as a whole, as these 13 

 counties produce two-fifths of the cotton grown in Alabama, the other 

 three-fifths representing 51 counties, the larger number of which lie 

 above the center of the State. Here the plantations are not so liable to 

 attack, owing to their greater isolation, or from their higher latitude 

 cannot suffer as much when attacked, as the worms are sure to appear 

 later, and for this portion of the State a fair estimate of loss would be 

 12.5, or in round numbers 39,000 bales! This added to the loss in the 

 cotton belt gives a total of 95,790 bales, upon a crop of 536,000. 



The average of 14 years for Alabama, at the rate of $50 per bale, 

 which is low for a series of years, gives us the startling amount of 

 $4,987,000, or nearly five millions, as the destruction in Alabama for a 

 single year, when the worms are numerous. Startling as the figures 

 may seem to those unacquainted with cotton- worm visitations, they 

 doubtless would be found below the real amount of loss could we by any 

 means ascertain it with certainty. 



In Georgia, the percentage of injury for the whole State is a little lower, 

 or 16.5 per cent. Sixteen cotton-growing counties, representing about 

 one-fifth of the productions for the whole number, give a loss of 17,972 

 bales out of 71,600, or 25.1 per cent, of injury. For the remaining four- 

 fifths, or 403,000 bales, 15 per cent, is a high average. Making 60,450, or 

 a total for the State of 78,422 bales out of 474,600, and a loss in value 

 equal to $3,921,000. 



For Mississippi the percentage of loss for the whole State is 17, or 

 123,000 bales, out of an average crop of 760,000. Here the figures show 

 24 per cent, as the loss for a little over a third of the State, in counties 

 of heaviest production, with 15 per cent, for the remaining two-thirds. 

 Total loss, $6,150,000. 



In making the calculations for Louisiana, where there has been a 

 greater increase in cotton production for a number of years past, the 

 figures of the Ninth Census must be raised about two-fifths, instead of 



* Report of the Statistician, p. 120. See, also, map facing title page. 



