The Savannah morning news., 1903-08-27
CATERPILLAR PEST
PROF. sTARNEs TELLS FARMERS
HOW TO BE RID OF 1T.
BIRDS MUST BE PROTECTED.
PARIS GREEN MUST BE USED IN
THE EARLY MONTHS.

Can Create a Progeny of Number
Device Used by Man and Horse
Can s'POisOn' IL to IS Acres n Day.
Theories as to PeriOdicity of
Pests Appearance.
Griffin, Ca, Aug. 26.-Press Bulletin
No. AZ, of the Georgia Experiment Sta
tion, which will be issued in a few
days, contains a very interesting
article by Prof. H, N. Starnes on the
cotton caterpillar. AS the cotton fields
of South Georgia are just now suffer-
ing serious damages from this pest the
suggestions offered in this bulletin for
holding it in check will prove of in
calculable benefit to the farmers of
that section.
Prof. Starnes believes the suppress
sion of these pests will continue to be
more troublesome each year unless the
ruthless slaughter of the insectivorous
birds be prohibited by state law. He
says:
Frequently the remark is heard:
The caterpillar has hit US so soon this
year that the damage is going to be
frightful; if he had only waited few
weeks before he struck US it would
have benefited, not injured, our fields
Now both a misconception and an
error underlie this statement, and the
two sound together the keynote for
the successful control of the pest. 1t
is quite true that premature defolia-
ton of the cotton plant impairS its vi
tally and reduces the yield; also that
the removal of the leaves later in the
season, after fruit setting is practical
" over, eXpedites the opening process.
Therefore the caterpillar may be Gap
parently) either a blessing or a curse.
But the misconception consists in
regarding the advent of the caterpil-
lar as the advance of solid phalanx
or hord, moving like AN army with
banners by daily marches from out
side territory or foreign soil upon our
devoted fields-or swarming suddenly
from the clear sky like the locust Of
Morocco or the Kansas grasshopper.
CaterpfIIars Always Here.
THE caterpillar doesn't come that
way Like the poor, he is always with
singly or by small detachments in
very early spring some from the West
Indies, possibly, or from MeXico-a
larger portion from South Texas and
Florida-their number increasing by de-
grees as the sleepers awake in the
'Wiregrass' region, which is their main
place of Information and the source Of
practically the entire infestation.
The adults, on emerging from win
faV a.
depositing from 300 to 600 eggs, on an
average, perhaps 500. The foreign moths
oViposit in the extreme South as early
as March !. our native hibernators ex-
tending the process through the entire
summer For, as it requires from three
to eight weeks to attain the adult
stage from the egg, it will be seen
that there are thus from three to seven
successive broods, according to is
otherm and the accidental retardati ton
or acceleration i'll development. Con-
sequently, after the first brood or so
there arises an inextricable tangle and
intermingling of generations as the de-
Velopment proceeds gradually north
ward over the cotton growing area.
The apparent 'swarming' of the cat
erpillars in late summer is thus due
to the enormous multiplication of the
successive broods, and naturally is
ton of the cotton area, where the warm
er climate and longer season admit of
both earlier emergence and more rapid
Srowth-thus producing a greater num-
Der OF broods in a given time than
does the upper part of the cotton belt.
The mild autumn weather of the lower
South also permits larger number of
caterpillars of the later broods to ma
ture, and as the insect winters in the
or 81
Viously alluded to (along with the mis-
conception already explained) becomes
manifest; for Notwithstanding the
temporary apparent benefit derived
from the opening of belated bolls caus-
ed by the later broods of the caterpil-
lar, its advent at any time is ultimate
~ disastrous, as the country is re-
stocked mainly by this means.
Destroy Early BrOOds.
1t is therefore of prime Importance
10 destroy the earlier broods, or as
many individuals of them as possible
before they have a chance to multiply
at their marvellous phenomenal rate
lake as an illustration, the possibilities
OF reproduction for single pair Of
months, in the far South. Theoreti-
cally, that is, under the assumption
mat each female lays the average OF
5OO eggs and no allowance is made for
failure to hatch, and every caterpillar
presumed also to reach maturity, the
seventh generation-along in September
would consist of As, 1928, 1926, 900, 900 indi-
Vlduals-an aggregate in digits, mean
ing little to the eye, but better re-
allied when it is stated that such a
mass of caterpillars would weigh, al
z4O to the pound, 101, 1926 tons-as
much as 100000 big Mogul locomotives
or two and a half times the weight
OF last years total cotton crop! Strung
tail to head they would form a chain
spanning ten times the distance from
the earth to the sun, and 4,282 times
the distance from the earth to the
moon! Any one can figure it for him
self In five minutes.
OF course this Is only theoretical
Necessarily countless quantities of eggs
would never hatch and millions or
millions of larvae would fail to ma.
ture, but it serves to give some idea
OF the enormous reproductive power:
OF the pest and to impress the i'm
portance of not waiting to begin the
nght until the foe occupies the field ir
Iorce! One caterpillar of the second
brood destroyed in early June may
mean the reduction of the fourth brood
Dy million in late August! Early
nghting' is therefore the watchword
Get In a timely first blow, and, like
Mark Twain's Scotty, break up the
Flot before it has a chance to start!
Remedial measures must of neces-
slty be directed against the larval form
or this insect-the caterpillar-which
fortunately yields readily to applica-
lions of paris green; but, as already
emphasized, efforts should be mainly