COTTON CULTURE. 97 



little at each end; rather thick in proportion to its length, 

 and has six legs in the fore part of its body, eight at the 

 middle, and two near the tail. The head is brown, 

 smaller than the body, and oval in shape." 



After thus destroying from one to eight or ten bolls, 

 the reptile descends and rolls himself into a cocoon or egg 

 in which to get through the coming winter and spring ; 

 for nature prepares no food for him during nine months of 

 the year. The eggs or. cocoons that hybernate, must be 

 hidden in the neighborhood where the perfect insect lived, 

 that is, in the cotton-fields or near them. It is doubtful 

 whether any are hidden in the soil of the corn-field where 

 there is cotton anywhere near ; for, after July, the animal en- 

 tirely deserts corn, and goes to the cotton-fields. This is the 

 case, at least, in the district where cotton flourishes best, 

 for there the corn nearly all hardens late in July or early 

 in August. Thus, in the northern part of the cotton belt, 

 as Tennessee and North Carolina, the Boll-worm does lit- 

 tle injury to cotton, for there he can find green corn till 

 quite late in the season. 



These preferences and habits of the Boll-worm under- 

 stood, it is not so difficult to prescribe a course of treat- 

 ment that will rid the cotton-fields of his presence. 



There are two modes, and, so far as now known, but 

 two modes of expelling this pest ; one by starving or kill- 

 ing the moth, the other by drawing it to corn, its natural 

 food, and keeping it there. 



Rotation of crops, managed so as to place the corn at 

 some distance from the cotton, and throwing out the cot- 

 ton-field to lie fallow a year, will destroy almost all the 

 eggs of the Boll-worm. 



Suppose that a cotton farm is so far remote from others 

 as to enable the planter to interpose a mile of wood land 

 or pasturage between the cultivated fields of each. In 

 September, the worms descend from the bolls and enter 

 the ground. Let the ground lie fallow, or be sowed wit]] 

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