CHAPTER IX 



PEEVENTIVE MEASUEES. 



Mode of cultivation. — Our knowledge of the natural history of 

 Aletia and the yearly recurring experience with its ravages, teach us 

 that the principal and most effective means of prevention is to hasten 

 the maturity of the plant, so that a portion of the crop shall he beyond 

 the reach of harm from the more disastrous July and August broods of 

 the worm. The importance of this subject has long since been recog- 

 nized by intelligent planters, and important results have at times been 

 obtained. Mr. J. O. Mathews, of Crittenden's Mills, Dale County, Ala- 

 bama, writes, in answer to question 15 of the circular, as follows : " We 

 have improved our cotton seed so much that our cotton is all of a month 

 earlier than it was when the worm first ate us up. Last season our cot- 

 ton was nearly all open in August and September." Judge Jones, of 

 Yirginia Point, Tex., also writes us, September 5, 1880, as follows : 



" I have been more sensibly impressed than ever before, that early 

 planting and timely cultivation will give the cotton plant such a vig- 

 orous and early growth as to discourage the mother moth, and will ma- 

 terially retard their destructive movements. In nearly every instance 

 that has fallen under my observation this season, where cotton had an 

 early start, with faithful and diligent cultivation, the injury to the plant 

 and its fruit has been comparatively light, or .there has been entire ex- 

 emption from the worm." 



Improving the cotton seed in the direction just mentioned can be ac- 

 complished princii)ally by careful selection of early maturing varieties 

 of cotton ; or by introducing seeds from more northern regions. Early 

 planting is strongly to be urged in this connection, though, of course, it 

 has its drawback in the risk of exceptionally late frosts. Another way 

 to hasten the maturity of the crop has been suggested, viz., by planting 

 the seed in hot-beds during winter, and transferring the young plants 

 thus raised to the field when there is no longer danger of frost. On the 

 plan adopted by Northern growers of the sweet potato. 



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