[90] 



REPORT 



KiEKWOOD, Miss., September 5, 1879. 



1. The cnltivatiou of cotton, I am informed, was coeval with the settlement of the 

 country. I settled here in 1845 and found cotton cultivated all over the county. 



2. The Boll Worm has been an annual visitor since the first cotton was planted, 

 destroying more or less, according to the character of the season. Though I had 

 heard of the visitation of Aletia previously, I first observed it in 1858, though it did 

 but little damage to crops that year. 



3. It is more dreaded after a mild winter, but its visitations do not seem to be 

 influenced more by one tban the other ; that is, they are as often seen after one as the 

 other. 



4. Cannot say that a wet season favors its multiplication. They are never developed 

 during hard rains or continued wet spells. Their propagation seems to depend upon 

 showery weather creating atmospheric dampness, and a high mean temperature. Dry 

 weather is unfavorable to their production or increase. 



5. The last week in July is the earliest period. Have often found, what is here 

 called the grass worm, as early as May, eating both grass and cotton. 



6. Its first appearance, in my obsevA^ation, is along hill-sides where moisture is 

 retained, and hollow spots on upland, just where in plowing after a season the plow 

 encounters the wettest soil ; such spots as generally produce the most luxuriant cotton. 



7. About the middle of last November, and after several severe frosts, I found many 

 chrysalides, of the last brood, on bare cotton stalks, living and lively. I placed these 

 with others, previously brought in, in glass jars and boxes with earth and rubbish, 

 exposed to outer air. Between the 15th and 20th of January, after a severe freeze of 

 several days' continuance in December and January, a number of living moths came 

 forth, in a wairm spell then prevailing, but soon died. On the 6th of February the whole 

 lot of chrysalides were then examined, when many were found to be dead and dried 

 up, others again look plump, which were inadvertently rhrown away, and from the 

 cases of others several varieties of living ichneumon flies were taken alive. One of 

 them filling the ca?e, and of normal size, was sent to Professor Riley and pronounced 

 by him to be "■ Pimpla conquisiior,^' a parasite of Aletia. My impression now is that 

 had they been left undist-urbed the living moths would have issued forth this spring 

 from a few. 



I do not think the moth can survive the winter, as in its natural state and in con- 

 finement it is so short-lived in the summer, and my conclusion is that though it may 

 be retarded in its transformations in our climate by cool weather, it was not designed 

 by nature to hibernate in any of its phases, but is the creature of a semi-tropical cii- 

 niate, where it is perennial and completes the cycle of its existence uninterruptedly. 

 It has followed cotton, its favorite food, into our temperate climate, has become in- 

 digenous, but has been subjected to abnormal changes, and only appears in large 

 numbers during those periods when our climate assumes for a time a semi-tropical 

 aspect. 



Many of the moths leave their cases late in the fall, and many eggs as well as chrys- 

 alides are caught by the frost upon the cotton stalks and must necessarily fall to the 

 ground with the detritus of the plant, and where there is much vegetable matter, as 

 is the case in our fresh lands, and from the decomposition going on, would be well 

 protected against frost. What goes with the moth, unless it dies, is a mystery, as I 

 have rummaged everywhere without success, and in spite of rewards offered can hear 

 of none from one season to the next. The general opinion is that they die out. 



As the egg of the Aphis, a much more insignificant insect, but one greatly affecting 

 cotton, is known to survive the winter, by' analogy I do not see why the egg oi Aletia 

 may not likewise survive. The one, Aphis, is deposited on the stalk, and the other, 

 Aletia, on the leaf; both go to the ground. Aphis appears almost coetaneously wifh 

 cotton under its appropriate law, and whj- may not Aletia appear later from its ovum 

 under its appropriate law ? 



8. Starling and a species of gregarious blackbird ; ichneumon flies, and also a small, 

 velvety-looking caterpillar, black, with two lateral yellow stripes. 



9. Poisoned sweets near lights for the destruction of the moths were tried here many 

 years ago, and with some success. It was soon abandoned on account of the time and 

 trouble, as well aa expense, and has never been repeated. A moth-lamp attracted 

 attention a few years since about Canton, but that, too, has flickered out. 



10. Light wor.ld prove far more attractive than the sweet. 



11. I know of no flower which attracts them. 



12. Nothing. 



15. As we usually, in fact invariably, see the worm before we see or hear of the 

 moth, the aim would be to destroy the second brood, and this could be best done by 

 putting out lights and sweetened poisons to attract the moths. 



I will here reiterate what has been submitted in previous correspondence, that the 

 propagation of the worms in destructive numbers is the result of imxirudent tillage, 

 and that by plowing wet land we hasten their production by an artificial i)roce88 

 which good husbandry would teach us to avoid. He who will run his plows only 



