380 REPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



A mnrked example of the benefit of poisoned sweets is the experience 

 of Colonel Sorsby, as given in the Department of Agriculture Report for 

 1855: 



We procured eighteen common-sized dinner plates, into each of which we put half 

 a gill of vinegar and molasses, previously prepared in the proportion of four parts of 

 the former to one of the latter. These plates were set on small stakes or poles driven 

 into the ground in the cotton-field, one to about each three acres, and reaching a little 

 above the cotton-plant, with a six-inch square board tacked on top to receive the 

 plate. These arrangements were made in the evening, soon after the flies had made 

 their appearance; the next morning we found eighteen to thirty-five moths to each 

 plate. The experiment was continued for five or six days, distributing the plates over 

 the entire field, each day's success increasing, until the numbers were reduced to two 

 or three moths to each plate, when it was abandoned as being no longer worthy of the 

 trouble. The crop that year was but very little injured by the Boll Worm. The flieg 

 were caught in their eagerness to feed upon the mixture by alighting into it and being 

 unable to escape. They were probably attracted by the odor of the preparation, the 

 vinegar probably being an important agent in the matter. As the flies feed only at 

 night, the plates should be visited late every evening, the insects taken out, and the 

 vessels replenished as circumstances may require. I have tried the experiment with 

 results equally satisfactory, and shall continue it until a better one is adopted. 



The devices which have been invented for entrapping night-flying 

 moths, as well as the compound for attracting them, have already been 

 discussed in Chapters X and XIII, and additional remarks upon these 

 remedies will be unnecessary. 



HAND-piCKiNa. — Indiscriminate hand-picking of the later broods of 

 the Boll Worm upon cotton is, of course, out of the question, but the plan 

 of killing the worms of the first two or even three broods in corn is emi- 

 nently practicable, and will undoubtedly save the cotton from much of 

 the damage done by the later broods of the worm. On account of the 

 numerous food-plants, extermination would, of course, be impossible, 

 but the early corn crop contains by far the greater part of the earlier 

 broods, and time and labor will be far from lost when we consider how 

 great is the importance of a single individual of the first or second 

 brood in view of its possible offspring. In localities where corn is not 

 grown at all over a large space, as in parts of Texas, it will, we think, 

 pay planters to grow small patches here and there as traps for the early 

 worms. Several of the older writers on the Boll Worm have suggested 

 this plan, among them Colonel Sorsby, Mr. Sanderson, and Peyton 

 King; but, practical as it sounds, it seems never to have been used to 

 any extent. 



We have already shown, under the head of food-plants, how the pres- 

 ence of the first brood of the worms in the young corn may be detected 

 by the riddled appearance of the leaves. Similarly the individuals of 

 the second and third broods may be discovered by the excrement at the 

 ends of the ears, by the absence of silk, or by a waving or rippling of 

 the husk in places. Now, if the plow-hands in cultivating the crop be 

 instructed to watch for these signs, and, at their appearance, to stop 

 ^,nd destroy the worms, or, better stilly if boys be occasionally sent 



