778 



EEPORT UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



Remedies. — Picking the caterpillars off the plants by hand, ditching, 

 and the use of burning straw when the caterpillars migrate from one 

 field to another, are remedies that can be applied in the cotton States, 

 when labor is cheap, to good advantage. By these means, and the use 

 of Paris green, the evil can be stamped out, provided co-operation is 

 practised among adjoining plantations. The same means should be 

 used as with the northern army-worm and potato-beetle. The most 

 serviceable remedy has been the use of Paris green, either dry, mixed 

 with cheap flour, or in water, in proportions sufficient to kill the cater- 

 pillars without injuring the plants. This remedy has been successfully 

 tried in the South. I take the following modes of using this poison 

 from Mr. Eiley's Sixth Eeport. In Texas, by the use of Paris green 

 mixed with lime or plaster, or even fine sand, " a neighbor has picked 

 already 10 bales of 500 pounds each from 13 acres, while freedmeu on 

 the same farm lost their whole crop by refusing to use it." Eepeated 

 applications should be made after the appearance of successive broods 

 of worms. By some, it is said application should not be made after the 

 bolls are open, lest it become dangerous to picker and giuner." Mr. J. 

 E. Maxwell, of Alabama, writes to the Southern Farmer : "I have been 

 successful in the use of Paris gi^een on the cotton-worm. I had 100 

 acres of cotton on swamp-land that would have been ruined, but on 

 their first appearance I commenced on them. I put eight hands on 

 mules, with two-gallon watering-pots, and had ten more hands and two 

 wagons engaged in keeping them supplied with water and poison, and 

 went over my cotton twice, up one side of a row and down the other, 

 going thus twice to each row. Poison, labor, and all cost me about 

 $300. It has saved me at the very least 20 bales of cotton. I used the 

 poison by putting to each canful of water half a table-spoonful of poi- 

 son and three table-spoonfuls of flour, stirring it well. I tried it first 

 without flour, but every shower would wash all the poison off." Another 

 Alabama farmer successfully used the powder-mixture on 50 acres at a 

 cost of 68 cents an acre. Mr. D. F. Prout says that the cost of material 

 an acre "for two applications will not exceed $1.75, viz: 40 pounds of 

 flour, at 2i cents per pound, and 2 pounds of Paris green, at 37 J cents." 

 He found, in his own experience, that an expenditure of $100 on about 

 80 acres increased the crop at least 10 bales. 



The Boll-Worm, HeleolMs armigera Linn. — Eating the boll of the cotton-plant, 

 corn in the ear, tomato-fruit, etc. ; a rather large, thick-bodied, pale-green or dark- 

 brown caterpillar, with longitudinal light and dark Hues, and with a broad yellow 

 band below the breathing-pores, and marked with black spots, from which arise fine 

 hairs. 



This moth is a cosmopolitan, being injurious in Europe, and inhab- 

 iting Japan and even Australia. It feeds on a variety of plants, not 



only devouring the calyx of the flower 

 but the boll, and corn in the ear as well 

 as the stock, unripe and ripe tomates, 

 green pease, string-beans, and young 

 pumpkins. It bores into the stalks of 

 the gladiolus, and in Europe is known to 

 devour the heads of hemp and leaves of 

 tobacco and of lucern, as well as chick 

 or coffee pea. — (Eilcy.) 



"The egg from which the worm hatches 

 is ribbed in a somewhat similar manner 

 to that of the cotton-worm, but may 

 Fig. 46.— Boll-Worm and Parent readily be distinguished bv being less 

 Moth. (After Glover.) flattened and of a pale straw color in- 



