74 
AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
ton, found them in the woods, principally on the cedar-hush, encased 
alive in their cover, impervious to water, and secured to a twig by a 
thread. The pupae, wrapped in cotton leaves, from their bleak ex- 
posure, invariably die on the approach of cold weather.” 
From what was stated to me by some of the best planters in Flori- 
da, last summer, it wop Id seem that this caterpillar appears on their 
plantations more or less, almost, if not every year, and sometimes in 
a most unaccountable manner. Mr. E. Richards, of Cedar Keys, 
furnishes a statement which would seem to prove that it is migratory 
in its hahits, as there is no other method of accounting for its sudden 
presence, except that, having previously existed on some other plant, 
or weed, it had left it for food more congenial to its taste, although 
it has been asserted that the real caterpillar will eat nothing but 
cotton. Ho says : “The last of July, 1845, these caterpillars made 
their appearance in a small field of three or four acres of Sea-Island 
cotton, planted on Way Key, as an experiment to see if cotton could 
be advantageously cultivated on the Keys, no other cotton having 
been previously planted within 80 miles of them ; but the whole crop 
was devoured. The caterpillar was at the same time destroying the 
cotton in the interior of the country.” 
in a statement made this season by Mr. William Munroe, of Gads- 
den ~ounty, Florida, to the Agricultural Department of the Patent 
Oflice, lie appears to think Sea-Island cotton not so liable to bo 
attacked as the short-staple, when the two varieties are planted to- 
gether. In his letter he says: “I observed, when I had two fields of 
cotton adjoining, the one short-staple and the other Sea-Island, and 
the cotton caterpillars made their appearance, that they always 
destroyed the short-staple cotton first. Four years ago, my crop was 
destroyed by the worm, and at that time they ate every green leaf on 
the short-staple cotton before they attacked the Sea-Island. This 
year (1855) my short-staple crop was destroyed by the worm, on the 
Appalachicola river, and I observed that after the short-staple crop 
was all eaten, several Sea-Island stalks in the field, at a little dis- 
tance, seemed to be uninjured ; but, upon close examination, it was 
tound that the worm had just commenced upon them. My impres- 
sion, from the above observation is, that, if we in this country were 
to confine ourselves to the production of the Sea-Island cotton, the 
attack of the caterpillar would be much less frequent, or would 
probably altogether cease.” 
In regard to the periodical visitations of these caterpillars, Dr. 
Gapers remarks that their first appearance, as destroyers of cotton, was 
in the year 1800, and that, in 1804, the crops were almost destroyed 
by them. A snow-storm occurred, however, and swept them away ; 
but they were found the succeeding seasons, though in smaller num- 
bers. In 1825, they were spreading, but perished again by a storm. 
In 1820, they destroyed the crops. The first notice of them in this 
year was on the first of August, at St. Helena. Soon after, they were 
found on all the seacoast, from New Orleans to North Carolina. On 
the 23d of the same month, they had destroyed almost all the cotton 
leaves, but suddenly left the plant, though not for the purpose of 
webbing, as many of them were young. The cause of their sudden 
