244 INSECTS AFFECTING VEGETATION 



gestions are made: The plat or plats should be far from timber, 

 hedgerows, seed storage houses, and other protection for hibernating 

 weevils. On the appearance of the earliest weevils the plats should 

 be carefully picked over by hand. This should be continued until 

 well after the squares begin to fall. If the falling of the squares 

 continues it will be found practicable to rake them by hand to the 

 middles or entirely outside of the plats to a bare place, where the 

 sun will soon destroy the larvae within. Of course all other general 

 suggestions that are applicable in the field should be added to these 

 special ones. (Farmers' Bui. 344.) 



Cutworms. The first insect which attacks the young cotton 

 plant in the spring is liable to be a cutworm. Soon after the young 

 plants come up, and often after they are fairly well grown, they are 

 liable to be cut off at the surface of the ground by one of these cater- 

 pillars, all of which have the habit of hiding beneath the surface 

 of the ground by day and coming out to work at night. The granu- 

 lated cutworm is probably the most common of the species collectively 

 designated by Glover as the cotton cutworm.' A number of other 

 species, however, are undoubtedly concerned in this damage. 



Plant-Lice. While the cotton plant is yet young and tender, 

 the damage which plant-lice do by gathering upon the young shoots 

 and tender leaves and curling and distorting them may be very con- 

 siderable. This insect is identical with the species which occurs com- 

 monly through the South, and the North, too, for that matter, upon 

 melons and cucumbers. There is no single alternate perennial food 

 plant, as in the case of the hop aphis, upon which the insect may be 

 destroyed during the earlier or later portion of the year. As the 

 cotton plant grows larger and stronger the work of the cotton aphis 

 becomes of no importance, partly through the hardier condition of 

 the plant, but also through the fact that the many natural enemies 

 of the lice increase to such numbers as nearly to annihilate them. 

 There will seldom be, therefore, any necessity for the application of 

 remedies ; and, indeed, as nothing can be done except to spray with a 

 dilute kerosene-soap emulsion or a resin wash, it is a question 

 whether it will not pay the cotton grower much better to replant the 

 damaged spots. 



Leaf-Feeding Caterpillars. There are many Lepidopterous 

 larvae which feed upon the leaves of the cotton plant ; few of them, 

 however, are confined to the cotton plant for food. One of the 

 species most commonly noticed, is known from its work as the leaf 

 roller a title under which another species may also be included. 

 Both species are general feeders and are found in various parts of 

 the country, the former upon apple, rose, peach, cherry, birch, 

 clover, honeysuckle, bean, strawberry, and other plants, and the 

 latter upon clover and grass. The larvaa of the former, in addition 

 to folding the leaves of cotton and feeding within the roll, sometimes 

 bore into the young bolls, but this method of damage is rare. 



Several of the larger Bombycids also feed in the larval state 

 upon cotton. Among these we may mention the large royal horned 

 caterpillar, sometimes known as the hickory horned devil, a very 



