MEANS OF DESTROYING THE MOTH. 129 



mode of destruction would be of no special or immediate benefit to the 

 planter who undertakes it, but if done generally in the district defoli- 

 ated by the worms, it would help to prevent the emigration of the moths 

 to other regions, or if done late in the season it would lessen the num- 

 ber of hibernating moths. 



Destruction of the Moth. — Easy as it may seem to prevent the 

 mischief done by the worms, by trapping or otherwise killing the parent 

 moth, and notwithstanding the fact that one method of attracting them 

 has been known and used for very many years, and that another method 

 of doing so has been more recently discovered, yet the results that have 

 followed the attempts to destroy or exterminate the moths by these 

 methods are not, as a rule, encouraging. The unsatisfactory results may 

 be attributed to, first^ lack of concerted action ; and, second^ delayed 

 attempts to kill until the moths had already become too numerous and 

 the worms had done considerable damage. 



It has already been remarked, with regard to the first point, that con- 

 certed action over the whole cotton-growing country cannot be exijccted ; 

 but if the planters in those more or less limited districts that are known 

 as the distributing centers of the insect, or even in those particular 

 spots where the worms appear and reappear year after year, would make 

 earnest effort, at the right time, to trap and kill the moths, there is lit- 

 tle doubt but that the excessive increase of the insect would be either 

 retarded or prevented. If this pest is suffered to increase until the 

 third or fourth generation, any attempt to lessen the number of worms 

 by killing the moths will necessarily prove futile. To make this method 

 of preventing injury of any avail, action must be taken early in the 

 season.^ 



Lights for attracting the Moth. — That the moth is attracted by light 

 is an old and well-known fact, and in the days of slavery the only 

 remedy generally used by planters, besides the hand-picking of the 

 worms, was to light large fires in, or have burning torches carried 

 through, the fields at night. It is impossible to say at the present time 

 whether or not these efforts were successful, but it remains a certainty 

 that in '' worm years " the progress of the ravages was never pre- 

 vented by such means. It is almost needless to remark that in those 

 days, as in the present, such means were generally resorted to when the 

 moths had become quite numerous, and when, therefore, no success 

 was to be expected. 



Special fires intended for this purpose were generally made of dry 

 wood placed upon earth elevated on platforms. While for the reasons 

 here given we have little faith in the utility of such means at any other 

 season than early spring, yet the practice of cleaning the fields of all 

 rubbish and old stalk?s by making large bonfires in winter — a practice 

 that prevailed before the war, but which has been largely abandoned 

 since — is greatly to be commended on general grounds. 



It has been found troublesome, and, in some parts of the country, even 

 63 CONG 9 



