The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-12-31
FARMER AND PLANTER.
THE BOIL WORM.
a Texas Farmer Gives His Experienc
with the Pest

A Texas Farmer Gives His Experience
. .. with the Pest
The boil worm problem has attracted
much attention among certain enter
prising farmers and scientists, and
many theories have been submitted to
rid our cotton fields of this ruinous
pest. but so far none of these theories
seem. to the masses, to have been suffi-
GENTLY satisfactory or practical to in
duce them to act on them. The great
trouble seems to have been with SO
many, writer's on the subject that they
have dealt too much in off-hand theo-
ries without any real personal practical
knowledge. And another trouble is
the incredulity of the masses on this
subject, and especially the idea of de-
stroying by hand these pests which
seem to swarm, by the millions.
l wish to call the attention of
our cotton raisers to the fact that if our
tobacco raisers in the tobacco growing
states were to treat he tobacco worm
pest as we do the boil worm they would
never raise one pound of tobacco, but
the fight is on with them from start to
finish, and that by catching and killing
them by hand; and I am now of the
opinion that this alone will eventually
prove the salvation Of the cotton rails
ers. The plain fact confronts us to-
day that the farmers who do not wake
up and keep themselves abreast of the
times and improve their methods of
farming must, sooner or later, go to the
wall, and go there to stay.
The plan that has seemed to be the
most practical, simple and easiest for
/ destroying the boil worm was given me
few days ago by Mr.. J. C. Spelce, OF
Honey Grove. Mr.. Spelce says that he
planted four rows of corn around his cot
ton, and a short time before the corn
reached the tasseling stage. he went
around three mornings in succession
and killed fifteen hundred boil worm
millers. BY close observation he learned
that the millers deposited their eggs on
the young corn, and that they re-
manned hidden in the bud of the corn
during the day. He could, by looking
into the corn buds, see the miller, and
with his open hands, by slapping them
together on the corn buds, where the
miller was secreted, easily kill them.
This he did early in the morning. Now
1t does seem to me that if our cotton
raisers could be. sufficiently interested
on this subject to give it fair test we
might perhaps, in few years, by
good, close, fighting, rid our country
of this pest which every year leugthens
out the faces of so many of our farm
ers.
Mr.. Spelce has been experimenting
with boil worms for number of years,
and has learned much about them and
their habits. He says that each miller
deposits from 200 to 600 eggs; that the
eggs hatch in three days; that from the
egg to the miller is forty days; that
just before frost the worm goes into
the ground and remains in the chrysalis
until spring, when he comes out mil
Ter; that if our cotton land could all be
broken in the winter and turn the
chrysalis to the surface, that thousands
of them would thus be destroyed.
Now, 1 have written this with the
hope that some of our more enterpris.
ing farmers will give it test and give
us the benefit Of their experience. dc
not raise cotton, but shall watch the
corn buds for these fellows from start
&c, finish, and kill every dirty rascal Of
them that find. r. F. Butler, in Farm
and Ranch.