190 
COTTON 
IV. COTTON APHIS. 
When the first few leaves of the cotton plant have 
formed, you may frequently observe on the under 
surface many tiny, soft-bodied insects — some hav- 
ing wings, others wingless. Often they are so 
numerous on the terminals of the buds as to give 
these buds a black appearance. This pest is the cot- 
ton aphis. These aphides have passed the winter on 
various kinds of common weeds, but in spring mi- 
grate to the cotton plants. Often these tiny in- 
sects multiply so rapidly as to become very de- 
structive, doing the damage by sucking the sap 
from the young leaves. 
They can be destroyed by spraying with kerosene 
emulsion, whale oil soap, or tobacco water, but 
this is rarely profitable. As they pass the winter 
on various kinds of weeds, it is at once apparent 
that fall and winter plowing, by which the field is 
cleared of the host plants, will do much toward 
preventing injury from this pest. 
V. — CUT WORMS 
In early spring when young cotton plants are just 
out of the soil, the farmer when visiting the field 
in the morning will often find that many plants are 
cut off at the surface, as if some mischievous person 
had been trying to discover how many plants he 
could behead during the night. This destructive 
work is so familiar to every planter that he at once 
realizes that it is the work of cut worms. The 
well-known authors of these midnight raids are 
the caterpillars or worms. There are a number 
of different kinds, and the life-history of these sev- 
eral species varies considerably; in the case of a 
