50 



and mash the worm it contains. The small percentage of corn which, 

 even by the severest method, will be destroyed, together with its ab- 

 solute certainty in attaining the desired end makes this a cheap, effect- 

 ual, and practical measure to practice at this season of the year. 



Some advise the application of oil emulsions to the "buds" of the 

 young corn plants, but the time required to prepare the emulsions, ex- 

 pense of material and apparatus for applying properly the liquids or 

 powders used, again throws it beyond the realm of the practical. There 

 can be no practical advantage gained since no remedy of this nature 

 can be more satisfactory and expeditious than the practice of crushing 

 or cutting out and burning of the "buds" of infested plants as already 

 described. 



This preventive measure has the advantage of being inaugurated 

 at a time when labor is not so much needed for other purposes, and 

 hence can be done at a lesser cost and sacrifice. It can be utilized, 

 however, only during the fore part of the season, before the corn tas- 

 sels, and hence the importance of early action on the part of the plant- 

 ers at the time specified. 



As a second preventive measure the cotton field should be so ar- 

 ranged that four or five rows of corn are planted for every forty or fifty 

 rows of cotton, the corn to be planted at a such a time as to be in the 

 prime of silking and roasting ears a week or ten days after the July 

 brood of Boll Worms matures in the regular crop corn; that is to say, 

 at the time when the moths of the destructive August brood which at- 

 tacks cotton begin issuing. Finding the regular crop corn too near 

 maturity they are compelled to go to the cotton. This occurs from 

 about the first to the middle of August, depending more or less upon 

 the locality. The important point is to have green corn in suitable con- 

 dition for food at the time when what is called "the destructive brood" 

 goes to cotton. This time, as is well known, varies some in each local- 

 ity, and can and must be best determined by the farmers of their re- 

 spective localities. In most cases the result will be accomplished if the 

 trap corn spoken of is planted from about the first to middle of June. 



By some dozen experiments with trap-planted corn in various locali- 

 ties, its practicability as well as efficacy has been demonstrated. The 

 female unquestionably selects the trap-planted corn for egg deposition 

 to the practical neglect of the surrounding cotton and all other food 

 plants except cow-peas. The trap-planted corn being reduced to the 

 minimum quantity, the egg deposition upon each individual ear is un- 

 naturally increased. Oftentimes fifteen to twenty-five or thirty eggs 

 were found on the silks of a single ear. The worms fed and found 

 plenty of room in the ear of corn for a time, but as they grew larger 

 they became crowded and began to prey npon each other. When this 

 preying is once started it is carried to such an extent in these infested 

 ears that rarely more than one (sometimes two) of the twenty or thirty 

 worms ever attain maturity. Those even which attain maturity have 

 yet the risk of capture by natural enemies, parasites, disease, etc. ? to 



