MEANS OF DESTROYING THE MOTH. 
129 
mode of destruction would be of no special or immediate benefit to tlie 
plantfer who undertakes it, but if done generally in tbe district defoli- 
ated by the worms, it would help to prevent the emigration of the moths 
to other regions, or if done late in the season it would lessen the num- 
ber of hibernating moths. 
Destruction of the Moth. — Easy as it may seem to prevent the 
mischief done by the worms, by trapping or otherwise killing the parent 
moth, and notwithstanding the fact that one method of attracting them 
baa been known and used for very many years, and that another method 
of doing so has been more recently discovered, yet the results that have 
followed the attempts to destroy or exterminate the moths by these 
methods are not, as a rule, encouraging. The unsatisfactory results may 
be attributed to, first, lack of concerted action; and, second, delayed 
attempts to kill until the moths had already become too numerous and 
the worms had done considerable damage. 
It has already been remarked, with regard to the first point, that con- 
certed action over the whole cotton-growing country cannot be expected ; 
but if the planters in those more or less limited districts that are known 
as the distributing centers of the insect, or even in those particular 
spots where the worms appear and reappear year after year, would make 
earnest effort, at the right time, to trap and kill the moths, there is lit- 
tle doubt but that the excessive increase of the insect would be either 
ret aided or prevented. If this pest is suffered to" increase until the 
third or fourth generation, any attempt to lessen the number of worms 
by killing the moths will necessarily prove futile. To make this met hod 
of preventing injury of any avail, action must be taken early in the 
season. 44 
Lights for attracting the Moth. — That the moth is attracted by light 
is an old and well-known fact, and in the days of slavery the only 
remedy generally used by planters, besides the hand-picking of the 
worms, was to light large fires in, or have burning torches carried 
through, the fields at night. It is impossible to say at the present time 
whether or not these efforts were successful, but it remains a certainty 
that in u worm years" the progress of the ravages was never pre- 
vented by such means. It is almost needless to remark that in those 
days, as in the present, such means were generally resorted to when the 
moths had become quite numerous, and when, therefore, no success 
was to be expected. 
Special fires intended for this purpose were generally made of dry 
w<»od placed upon earth elevated on platforms. While for the reasons 
here given we have little faith in the utility of such means at any other 
season than early spring, yet the practice of cleaning the fields of all 
rubbish and old stalks by making large bonfires in winter — a practice 
that prevailed before the war, but which has been largely abandoned 
since — is greatly to be commended on general grounds. 
It has been found troublesome, and, in some parts of the country, even 
G3 CONG 9 
