DESTRUCTION OF MOTHS. 315 



DESTRUCTION OF THE MOTHS. It is the general opinion throughout 

 the South that the best if not the only way of getting rid of the boll- 

 worm is by the use of lights and poisoned sweets for attracting the 

 moths. Several correspondents even go so far as to say that the rav- 

 ages of the worms can always be checked by attracting the moths with 

 lights. Colonel Sorsby always had great success in killing these moths 

 with molasses and vinegar. He says : * 



We procured eighteen common-sized dinner plates, into each of which we put half 

 a gill of vinegar and molasses, previously prepared in the proportion of four parts of 

 the former to one of the latter. These plates were set on small stakes or poles driven 

 into the ground in the cotton-field, one to about each three acres, and reaching a little 

 above the cotton-plant, with a six-inch square board tacked on top to receive the 

 plate. These arrangements were made in the evening, soon after the flies had made 

 their appearance ; the next morning we found eighteen to thirty-five moths to each 

 plate. The experiment was continued for five or six days, distributing the plates over 

 the entire field, each days' success increasing, until the numbers were reduced to two 

 or three moths to each plate, when it was abandoned as being no longer worthy of the 

 trouble. The crop that year was but very little injured by the boll-worm. The flies 

 were caught in their eagerness to feed upon the mixture by alighting into it and being 

 unable to escape. They were probably attracted by the odor of the preparation, the 

 vinegar probably being an important agent in the matter. As the flies feed only at 

 night, the plates should be visited late every evening, the insects taken out, and the 

 vessels replenished as circumstances may require. I have tried the experiment with 

 results equally satisfactory, and shall continue it until a better one is adopted. 



The boll- worm moths appear to be attracted to the same sweets as 

 the cotton-moths, and are equally attracted to light. It follows, then, 

 that the remarks made in Chapter VII, Part I, will apply equally well 

 here, and that the devices there recommended for the destruction of the 

 cotton-moth may be here recommended for the destruction of the boll- 

 worm moth. 



* Department of Agriculture Report, 1855, p. 285. 



