72 
number of larvae were supplied with both kinds in the laboratory and 
their selection noted. The following table gives the preferences of a 
lot of ten young larvae on succeeding days: 
Table XXIV. — Relative attractiveness of King and Mit Afifi cottons. 
Kind of cotton. 
First Second 
day. ! day. 
Third 
day. 
Fourth Fifth 
day. day. 
Sixth 
day. 
Seventh 
day. 
Eighth 
day. 
Total. 
7 ' 9 
8 
2 
5 : 7 
.4j 3 
8 
2 
6 
3 
6 
.^fi 
Egyptian (Mit Afifi) 
2 1 
3 '^0 
COMPARATIVE INJURY TO EARLY AND LATE COTTON. 
Planters have been taught by the accumulated experiences of manv 
years that early-planted cotton is much less subject to the ravages of 
the bollworm than cotton planted late. This fact has also been noted 
by many observers, not only with reference to the bollworm, but to 
other cotton insects. Thus Riley, as early as 1885, says: 
Our knowledge of the natural history of Aletia [Alabama argillacea'] and the yearly 
occurring experiences with its ravages teach us that the principal and most effective 
means of prevention is to hasten the maturity of the plant so that a portion of the 
crop shall .be beyond the reach of harm from the more destructive July and August 
broods of the worm. 
Improving the cotton seed in the direction just mentioned can be accomplished 
principally by careful selection of early varieties of cotton or by introducing seeds 
from more northern regions. Early planting is to be strongly urged in this connec- 
tion, although, of course, it has its drawbacks in the risks of exceptionally late falls. f' 
Professor Mally, in discussing certain statistics of the relative injury 
of bollworms to early and late cotton in Texas in 1892, says: 
The late cotton, therefore, shows a loss of 50.6 per cent, while the early cotton 
shows no real loss. This may be taken as a'n extreme case, but the general principle 
remains that late cotton receives by far the greater portion of bollworm attack, 
virtually protecting the cotton fields about it. ^^ 
The decided preference of bollworms for squares and young bolls, • 
as compared with mature and more hardened bolls, is shown in the 
following table, as is also the comparative injurj^ to earl}" and late 
planted cotton. 
« Riley, Fourth Kept. U. S. Ent. Com., p. 120. 
& Mally, Kept, on the Bollworm, 1902, p. 12, Austin, Tex. 
