COTTON CULTURE. 65 



two enemies, the cotton worm and the army worm. If 

 they make an attack in force, your crop will be swept 

 away almost as soon as Jonah's gourd. The army worm 

 is much less insidious in its advance than the cotton moth 

 or cotton caterpillar, and you can arrest the march of the 

 devouring army by a narrow, sharp cut ditch carried all 

 around the place. If you hear of the advancing host 

 from the south or south-west, lose no time in starting 

 your double plows in on the side of your field which is 

 threatened. Throw a furrow from the crop,, and let the 

 hoe and spade follow, clearing out and cutting down till 

 you have a perpendicular Avail of earth, from twelve to 

 eighteen inches high, facing the enemy. Feeble as this 

 earthwork appears to be, it is enough to stop the march. 

 As soon as the advance guard reaches your lands, how- 

 ever, a strict watch must be kept, lest at some point they 

 find a low place in the earthen wall or some means of 

 scaling it. It may be well to keep the double plows at 

 hand, in order to deepen and clear out the ditch as they 

 come piling into it. 



The caterpillar, cotton worm or cotton moth, for each 

 of these names is applied to the same animal, appears also 

 in August. You will see a few pale brown millers or 

 moths flitting over the cotton field. By watching, you 

 may observe the insect selecting a leaf for her web or nest. 

 She will generally discover the place of her eggs by cut- 

 ting the midriff or largest fibre of the leaf, and bending it 

 over so as to form a little shelter tent, so to speak, for her 

 young. The eggs hatch in ten days, and the little worms 

 begin at once to devour the plant upon which they were 

 born. They eat constantly, day and night, growing rap- 

 idly to the length of about an inch and a quarter. The 

 time for fighting this enemy is as soon as you see the first 

 moth. They are clumsy and slow in their flight, so they 

 can be struck down with little paddles and killed. As 

 some will, of course, escape this attack, the planter should 



