File:Report on the agriculture and geology of Mississippi. Embracing a sketch of the social and natural history of the state (1854) (14596092917).jpg

Identifier: reportonagricult01miss (find matches)
Title: Report on the agriculture and geology of Mississippi. Embracing a sketch of the social and natural history of the state
Year: 1854 (1850s)
Authors: Mississippi. State Geologist Wailes, Benjamin L. C. (Benjamin Leonard Covington), 1797-1862
Subjects: Geology Agriculture Natural history
Publisher: (Jackson) E. Barksdale, State Printer
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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gorous or pro-lific as those that have not sustained this injury. The cause of this malady—too early planting—sug-gests the proper remedy. The casting of the forms or germs of the bolls mayperhaps also be regarded as a disease attendant on aderanged circulation in the plant, owing to an unequaland irregular supply of moisture. It is manifested mostgenerally upon a sudden transition from a very dry to avery wet season, and is consequently so far withoutremedy; it is, however, doubtless sometimes occasionedor aggravated by injudicious cultivation. The enemies of the cotton plant, besides those enume-rated, are chiefly the caterpillar and boll-worm.* The ravages of the chenille or cotton caterpillar(Depressaria Gossyinoides) has long been known in othercountries. It prevailed destructively in South Americaand the West Indies, having been described previous tothe present century, and is probably coeval with the cul-tivation of the cotton plant. In 1788 and 1794, two- * See Plate Y. ^:
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AGRICULTURE. 147 thirds of the crops in one of the Bahama Islands weredestroyed by it. The remedy first resorted to was the burning of thecotton-stalk in which the eggs of the insect were sup-posed to be deposited. This seems to have beenineffectual; it was certainly so as respects the insectthat occasions the rot, as, during the whole period of itsprevalence in this country, the burning of the stalkswas universal, and no diminution of the disease wasknown to have resulted from the practice. The most feasible remedy I can suggest is one I pro-posed more than ten years since: it is the destruction ofthe enemy by means of torches at night immediatelyafter the perfect immago or moth emerges from its pupa-rium or chrysalis state, and flies abroad, it being wellknown that fire-light attracts insects of this class. Ifthe hands on a plantation were each provided with alighted torch of pine wood, dried cane, or some similarmaterial, and made to pass through the fields at inter-vals of five or

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