70 



REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



From the few extracts given it is shown that in years of severe injury 

 33, 50, 75, or even 98 per cent, of the entire crop may be destroyed upon 

 some plantations, while others escape with trifling injury. In the States 

 lying to the extreme southward, as Florida and Texas, we find the highest 

 percentages of loss ; and only a little lower rate for the cotton belt, 

 where the ratio of loss increases from east to west, commencing with 

 Georgia at 16 per cent., and ending with Texas at 28 per cent. In the 

 northern tier of States the percentages are shown to be very low, North 

 Carolina planters generally believing the worm to be a blessing rather 

 than a curse, by removing superabundant foliage. 



The method of estimating the amounts of loss for each State has been 

 fully explained, and the figures presented both for number of bales and 

 money value j it now only remains to present these figures in tabular 

 form, and the whole subject is before the reader in the most available 

 shape tor study or perusal. 



The terms "highest" and "lowest," in the columns devoted to per- 

 centage of loss, do not refer to the greatest amount of injury, or the re- 

 verse, inflicted in individual localities, but to a general average for the 

 principal counties of heaviest production on the one hand, on the average 

 for the remainder of the State on the other. The average for the State 

 as a whole appears in the third column. 



The result shows a possible loss of $30,000,000 in years of general 

 prevalence of the worm, and, as these visitations are becoming more 

 frequent, it is probable that the real losses from the cotton caterpillar 

 are equivalent to an average of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 annually for 

 the entire period since the war. There is much evidence also to show 

 that the losses were equally disastrous prior to 1861. 



It should be stated that Virginia, the Indian Territory, and some other 

 States, produce a small amount of cotton, which, with the productions 

 of North Carolina, are not included in the above figures. It should also 

 be borne in mind that while the quantities are assumed as State aver- 

 ages for the period since the war, they are approximately correct, suffi- 

 ciently so for the purposes of this exposition. 



