The Marietta Journal

THE CATERPILLAR.
The Caterpillar has already, beyond a shadow of doubt, commenced its ravages in Southern and Eastern Alabama Several gentleman on the train yesterday assured us that they had seen them at work, and a box filled with these mischievous insects has been sent by Express from Fort Gaines to a cotton firm in Savannah. Mr. Dasher, the well know conductor, also told the writer that at Williams Station, thirteen miles beyond Eufaula, on the Clayton road, he saw several caterpillars devouring the leaves of a stalk of cotton, while others had actually "webbed up," and in a few days would appear again in countless multitudes. Impressed with fear that their crops were doomed to destruction, many planters were crossing their cotton fields with the plow, and planting them in corn.
One gentleman, Mr. Cargyle, of Eufaula, who had seen this scourge of the farmer, and pronounced it the genuine cotton caterpillar, had also taken this providential step, which would at least ensure an abundance of breadstuffs for the following year.
Never even on the seaboard of Georgia, where the winters are so mild that the larvae of this pestiferous insect survives the rigors of the season, have we known them to put in an appearance so early. Indeed, as late as the middle of August, the presence of the caterpillar is deemed the sure precursor of even less than a half crop of the great staple under the most favorable circumstances. But our people can only hope on and work on until time shall solve this portentous problem.
Telegraph & Messenger.