316 
From all information obtained on my trip, as well as from the records 
published within the past fifteen years, it is evident that the field work 
of the cotton worm investigation by the U. S. Department of Agricul- 
ture and the U. S. Entomological Commission coincided with the end 
of a period of a severe cotton worm visitation which culminated in the 
year 1877. In 1881 the worms were not generally distributed, and in 
the following years they were still more restricted. In the years 
1889-1892 there was, however, a noticeable increase in the number of 
worms although they were not nearly as destructive as in the years 
1877-1879, nor did they spread over the entire cotton belt as in the 
years mentioned. Some general application of remedies was practiced 
in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 1889 and 1890, while 
in southern Texas it was found necessary to continue the poisoning for 
two years longer. Compared with the widespread and severe destruc- 
tion brought about by the cotton worm previous to 1880 the last four- 
teen years constituted a period of comparative immunity from cotton 
worm* in jury. During this period there were years decidedly favorable 
to the development of Aletia, but there are various reasons why, in 
spite of favorable climatic conditions, the worms did not multiply and 
spread to any considerable extent. There can be no question that the 
change that has taken place in Southern agriculture is a very important 
factor in the cotton worm question. Before entering upon my trip I 
was of course aware that diversity of agriculture has taken a firm foot- 
hold in the South, but I was not prepared for the magnitude of the 
change brought about by diversified agriculture in the aspect of the 
southern fields. 
Fourteen years ago, when I traversed the whole length of the cotton 
belt, there was in the bottom lands and on the prairies of southern 
Texas, in the Mississippi bottoms of Louisiana and Mississippi, in the 
canebrake region of Alabama — in fact just in those places which 
have always been considered as the centers from which the cotton 
worm spread over the rest of the cotton belt — hardly anything culti- 
vated but cotton. To-day, in the same regions, the cotton fields are 
everywhere broken up by fields of corn and the present conditions 
may best be illustrated by a single example: Mr. George Little, of 
Columbus, Tex., had, in 1880, 500 acres of cotton under cultivation in 
the u bent " of the Colorado River. This year (1894) he has of the same 
area 300 acres in corn, 100 acres in Johnson grass, and only 100 acres 
in cotton. It is hardly necessary to say that this diminution of the 
cotton acreage, and especially the breaking up of the immense cotton 
fields of former years, has contributed largely to prevent an excessive 
multiplication of the worms and consequently the migration of the 
moths. 
Another point which must have no little contributed to the immunity 
from, cotton worms is the change that has taken place in the cotton 
plant itself since the development of the cotton seed oil industry. In 
