CHAPTER XIII. 



MAOHmBRY AND DBVIOES FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF 

 THE WORM— Concluded. 



VII.—INSECT MANIPULATORS AND MECHANICAL TREATMENT. 



DISLODGING, CEUSHING, OR STIFLING THE WORMS AND CHRYSALIDS. 



The practice of sweeping off or knocking or jarring off the worms, 

 pupse, or moths is related to that of taking them hj piching {silresidj 

 considered in Chapter XI), and at the proper times may have some 

 similar value. One difference is that in this method insects are gen- 

 erally manipulated by a tool or machine, though sometimes they are 

 knocked off by the hand or foot. Various sweeping and beating de- 

 vices are available, yet usually not commendable. Sticks, bats, bunches 

 of branches, brooms or long brushes, &c., naturally suggest themselves. 

 But these arrangements are applicable only with such force as to be not 

 suitable, and the machines embodying them, in so far as they have been 

 effective against the insects, prove also objectionably damaging to the 

 bolls, &c. 



The machines for manipulating plants, to remove insects from them, 

 may be thrown into two categories : (1) frictional drags, as brushes, 

 scrapers, ^c, and (2) heaters of the plants^ as clubs, flappers, &c. Though 

 some of these have not been tried, it is doubtful if any of them will 

 prove advisable for use upon the cotton crop. The best possibilities 

 that I can suggest are, for (1) the use of a large long fringe of light 

 ropes or other suitable materials, to be dragged along the row so that 

 the ropes or equivalent elements fall into the plants, down among the 

 branches and leaves, thoroughly to strike and wipe the surfaces of all 

 the leaves and branches and create thus such friction and disturbance 

 as to dislodge the worms. The elements in question should be nu- 

 merous and hang in contact with each other, but not heavy or rough 

 enough to break or scrape the plant or pull or knock off its bolls. Upon 

 this plan I made a device of soft materials also intended to be kept wet 

 with poison and thus wipe it off onto the leaves and branches. It con- 

 sisted of a group of long cylindrical, slender, sausage-shaped stuffed 

 bags, each being 1 or 2 inches in diameter. Bristles of animal or vege- 

 table or fine metal fiber held in the twist of ropes thus used add much 

 to their efficiency in removing anything from the foliage of the plants. 

 The greatest possibility that I can propose for (2) is in the use of very 



310 



