MEANS OF DESTROYING THE MOTH. 133 



allured. The smearing has the advantage'over the use in pans and bot- 

 tles, in that fewer beneficial insects are destroyed. 



We cannot say that these experiments have led us to be in any way 

 sanguine of substantial benefit flowing from this mode of killing the 

 moths in the autumn, which is the season when they are most easily so 

 destroyed, for they do not seem to care much for such baits except when 

 they cannot get their more natural food in the shaj^e of saccharine ex- 

 udations. The fact that early or summer ripening peaches are not in- 

 jured — a fact that is well attested by many correspondents — also indi- 

 cates that the moths do not care so much for fruits even, so long as they 

 can obtain nourishment in the cotton fields, and so long as they are not 

 congregating in numbers. 



Experiments made in the summer season with these artificial baits in- 

 dicate that a much smaller percentage of moths is allured thereto, and 

 while there can be no question of our ability to kill a certain number in 

 this manner, it would prove a most expensive remedy if used on a suffi- 

 ciently large scale to materially reduce their numbers. In fact, we have 

 become convinced that there is very little use in attempting to destroy 

 the parent moth in the latter part of the season. In what has been pre- 

 viously said on the natural history and the hibernation of the species, 

 it has been made pretty clear that the great bulk of the moths are nat- 

 urally destined to perish in any event-, so that the labor is largely thrown 

 away. 



Until, therefore, we discover some baits that shall have a greater at- 

 traction for the moths than the natural sweets they feed upon, there is 

 little to expect from this mode of warfare. There is a season, however, 

 when the use of these baits is strongly to be recommended, and, oddly 

 enough, it is the season when nobody thinks of using them. It is in this 

 as it is with the lights j the greatest good will result from attracting 

 and destroying the first moths in spring after they issue from their win- 

 ter quarters. Every female killed at that season is equivalent to the 

 destruction of several hundred worms later in the season 5 whereas not 

 one in a thousand, and perhaps not one in a hundred thousand, of the 

 Moths killed in autumn would, in the natural course of events, have sur- 

 vived to beget progeny. Concerted action is just as necessary here as 

 in the use of lamps. 



As it has been proven beyond doubt that sweets poisoned with Paris 

 green or London purple do not lose their attractive power to the moth, 

 and that such i)oisons are taken up by the moth, it appeared most de- 

 sirable to poison the glands on the cotton plant, which, as we have 

 seen, furnish, with their saccharine secretion, one of the principal food 

 supplies of the moth. Experiments on plants covered with netting, and 

 others kept in breeding cages, made it certain that the moth can be 

 killed by poisoning the under side of the leaves, the moths feeding on 

 the poisoned glands. So long, however, as there were no means known 

 to apply the poison from below, this plan could not be adopted ; but, 



