A P P E I¥ D I X VIII. 
ANSWERS TO CIRCULAR NO. 7.* 
Saim FRANCI8VIIXE, Wi si !'i i.iciana PARISH, LOUISIANA, 
October 2, 1679. 
A circular from yon requesting answers to certain questions relative to the Cotton 
Worm was received some months since, and my reply has been deferred to this date in 
order to enable ine to observe the worm and its depredations throughout the entire 
MMOII. f iltrl year a similar ciicnlar was received from the office of the Agricultural 
l)epartment. to whic h I replied fully and specially to all the questions as far as my 
information extended. 
1. Cotton has been grown here since this cent ury began — eighty years — and ])erhaps 
longer. lama native, titty-eight years old, and my family and relatives came here 
from North Carolina in Spanish times and soon afterwards, i. r.,from 1800 to 1810. 
They always raised cotton from their first settlement here. 
2. I have no records or histories to refer to in order to answer this (|iiest ion tully and 
accurately. From old settlers 1 have heard that the Army Worm came here before my 
recollection — this is. before 1-27 or 1-2- — and destroyed the crops. I think this was 
between 1-20 and 1.-24. I have heard old settlers who came here from South Caro- 
lina say that the Cotton Worm came there hefore lslf>, ami rafigpfl the crops. From 
my recollection, the worms n«-\ ei appeared here in any greoJ numbers after J 8*28 un- 
til 1840 or 1-41. I was raised on a plantation, where I now live, my father and all of 
my family on my father's and mother's side being large cotton planters, and my recol- 
lect ion dates back to 18*28 about all matters of any gnat moment. 
In the above year, 1-10 or 1841, I returned home on a visit from school late in the 
fall, say October, and found the cotton fields white with the open cotton and tilled 
also with Cotton Worms. In a few days they ate all the leaves from the stalks of cot- 
ton, and then began to crawl off, moving like a great army, and tilling the ruts and 
washes in the roads and fields with millions of worms, which being unable to craw l 
out died there in masses. As the worms appeared that year quite late in the season, 
no damage was done to the cotton crop, except to make the open cotton dirty and 
trashy from the excrements and cut leaves dropped by t he worms on the cotton. 
In 1*40 the worms appeared again, and that year the crops were greatly injured, 
the worms eating the cotton up so early in the season t hat not more than ."(I to 7() per 
cent, of a full crop was made by planters in this section. The worms never came 
again in sufficient numbers to at tract any general notice until after 1 he war began. 
We heard of their appearance soon after the federal occupation of New Orleans and 
the lower part of the State, from i he great desire to get cotton to supply the markets 
and fat tories abroad and at the North and the many attempts made in that region to 
raise cotton for that purpose, Inside of the Confederate lines, in this section, very 
little cotton was raised during the war. the people turning their attention almost ex- 
clusively to raising food crops. Worms appeared, however, in the small fields of cot- 
ton raised here for several years before the war ended. Beginning with 1806, they 
have been in this section every \ear since, sometimes many and again very few; but 
no year has passed with an entire, absence of the worm since IStiO. 
3. I do not think the coldness or mildness of the wiuters affects the worms here — 
our winters are never very cold — as our latitude is too far South to permit it. We 
have had very cold weather, for this section, many times since 18 60, and the worms 
have appeared every year, more or less. 
4. They are always worse in w et summers; never very bad in very hot, dry sum- 
mers. They are generally noticed first in July, and if its after progress is attended 
by repeated rains during July, August, and September, the crops are very apt to be 
much injured, if not completely demolished. But if it remains hot and dry during the 
above-named months, the worms never do much damage. 
* This circular is printed in the Introduction. 
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