15 



Commeuco using tliem about tho first of Juue; light up the field once or 

 twice each week in June, and two or three times each week in July and 

 August. By doing so you destroy the first broods of flies, and prevent 

 them from increasing." 



While on the subject of preventives, of which over a dozen alleged ones 

 have been spoken of in the correspondence I have received, this, of using fires 

 attract and destroy the moth before it has had time to deposit its eggs, has 

 been frequently ^recommended, as in the letter of Mr. J. V. Tevier, of 

 Ashwod, La., which I give in another place, the second letter, and which, 

 owing to his long experience is deserving of particular attention. 



JUTE AS A PREVENTIVE. 



In speaking of jute, corcliorus capsularm, as a preventive of the cotton 

 worm when sown around the cotton field or in spaces between the rows, 

 I think it advisable, in the first ijlace, to state that jute is a profitable crop, 

 and finds as ready and as advantageous a market as the fleecy staple itself. 



The plant is a native of Hiadoostan, and has been used for ages in textile 

 fabrics throughout Asia and the islands of the Indian Ocean, where the 

 natives, although without the help of ingenious machinery for its man- 

 ipulation, make many really beautifal cloths, in looms of the most prima- 

 tive description, from its hand prepared fibers. 



This filamentous plant was very little known, even in Europe, until the 

 war of secession caused an interruption in the agricultural pursuits of the 

 South and produced, in consequence, a scarcity of cotton, when the British 

 trade, which long understood the value of the plant, took advantage of the 

 favorable opportunity to introduce and disseminate jute as a substitute for 

 cotton. Companies were formed for the promotion of its culture, etc., and 

 linndreds of pounds sterling expended on trials of its adaptability to pro- 

 duce cloths which had been previously wrought only from cotton or flax ; 

 and, although experiments and the experiences of nearly fourteen years 

 have proved conclusively that jute can never take the place of cotton, they 

 have also proved that jute is preferable to cotton in the construction of 

 many articles of the greatest commercial importance, and that a mixture 

 of jute with wool, hemp, flax, or cotton, enables the manufacturer to give 

 to the markets of the world, many cloths equal in all respects to those 

 heretofore made from one of these staples without mixture, at a cost com- 

 paratively trifling. 



In Dundee, Scotland, there are over one hundred mills, employing thou- 

 sands of hands, where jute is wrought into numerous and various goods ; in- 

 deed that city is the center of jute specialties, and in every other portion of 

 Europe, particularly France, the staple is used largely, while the American 

 trade pays annually several millions for raw and manufactured jute im- 

 ported from various points in British India. 



I make these statements merely to impress on the cotton planters of the 

 South, the fact that while other preventives, or destroyers of the cotton 



