APPENDIX I REPORTS OF" OBSERVERS. 351 

 REPORT OF A. R. GROTE, OF BUFFALO, N. Y. 



SIR : In accordance with your favor of July 18, in which yon directed me to visit the 

 States of Georgia and Florida for the purpose of making observations on the insects 

 injurious to the cotton-plant, I proceeded to Savannah, and, during the following month 

 of August, madeexaminations of cotton-fields at different points between Savannah and 

 Atlanta. Having charged me especially with that phase of the cotton-worm inquiry 

 which comes under the head of migrations, I directed my chief attention to making 

 observations and collecting information on the appearance and movement of the cotton- 

 worm (Aletia argillaeea). 



It was first my object to ascertain if the worm could be found at the time of my visit 

 at any of the points visited by me. A careful survey of the plantation of Dr. Lawton 

 near Savannah, from August 1 to August 7, and other cotton patches in the vicinity, 

 convinced me that the worm had not then appeared. The statements made to me were 

 to the effect that its earliest appearance was usually to be looked for about the middle 

 of the month. 



Henry Gaston, engaged in planting cotton for nearly twenty years, said that the first 

 brood of worms usually webs up about the middle to the latter part of August, giving 

 a second brood in September. The worm was first noticed in the stronger cotton on 

 the bottom-lands. The worm was never found by him on anything but cotton, and 

 he had noticed it leaving one patch of cotton and going to another when leaf failed 

 and there was nothing for the worms to continue feeding upon. He had used Paris 

 green, dusted in a dry state upon the leaves, and it killed the worms. Care had to be 

 used by him to avoid the poison getting into his eyes or on sores or tender places of the 

 body. He had observed the fly before the appearance of the worm, but had never 

 noticed it in the early spring. 



This testimony is given as a sample of the information collected from various individ- 

 uals. While August seems to be the usual time for the appearance of the worm on the 

 mainland, on tho coast of Georgia, in the neighborhood of Savannah, the testimony of 

 Dr. J. S. Lawton, on the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina to the northward of 

 Savannah, is to the effect that the worm appears sometimes as early as July and is then 

 usually excessively injurious to the long-staple cottons. 



In Southwestern Georgia the worm is noticed as early as the last week in June in 

 some years, and the main damage inflicted in the State seems to come from this quar- 

 ter. The worm occurs there every year, though the date at which it is noticed varies. 

 The question whether the earliest so-called " brood " is the first appearance of the 

 worm in any quarter has been raised by yourself, and is one to which I hope to be able 

 to pay close attention in the spring. 



For the present we must accept the testimony that the worm seems to advance from 

 Southwest Georgia over the western and occasionally over the central portions of the 

 State. It seems to come from Decatur to Baker, Calhoun, Dougherty, and Lee Conn- 

 ties. Aecording to present testimony its appearance is not simultaneous over this sec- 

 tion of the State, the southern portions being first visited. 



From testimony collected by myself in Athens, on the occasion of the meeting of the 

 Agricultural Society of Georgia, the following counties are visited by the cotton-worm 

 every year, though the exact time is not, according to testimony, the same : Cal- 

 houn, Decatur, Dougherty, Lee, Macon, Schley, Taylor. Counties in which the worm 

 is not noticed every year are Burke, Clarke, Fulton, Green, Hancock, Jones, Monroe, 

 Putnam, Richmond. 



It will be seen that the central portion of the State is less subject to the devastation 

 of the cotton- worm than the southwestern and western. Under the theory of its grad- 

 ual spreading from south to north we niav suppose a seaboard source of infection and 

 one from the southwest and the State of Alabama. 



Collections of other insects on the cotton-plants, which I found in my journey from 

 Savannah to Atlanta, were made and forwarded to you. At Atlanta I found the larva 

 of Citheronia regalia feeding on the cotton-plant at the end of August. This species 

 occurs singly, and although of large size never does much damage. There is but one 

 brood in the year, and the larva feeds besides on the gum, persimmon, walnut, and 

 hickory. 



From the Hon. Robert Toombs I learned that there was an emigration of French 

 cotton-planters in Martinique to Southwest Georgia in 1801-1802 on account of the 

 ravages of the cotton-worm in the West Indies. Mr. Toombs sold his plantations in 

 Southwest Georgia ora account of the ravages in 1835 committed by the cotton-worm 

 in Early and Clay Counties. The cotton- worm has been shown by me to be a tropical 

 insect in my paper before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 read at the Hartford meeting, and the fact must be conceded that prior to the culti- 

 vation of cotton in the United States it could have made no foothold in our territory. 



I received in November, 1878, fresh instructions from you to proceed to Georgia for 

 the purpose of ascertaining whether I could find eggs from the last moths on any por- 

 tion of the plant and any facts bearing on the hibernation of the moth. On the plan- 



