In a week or ten days the cotton is "up," when a small plough is run along the drills, throwing the earth _from_ the tender plants. The next process is "scraping;" in other words, thinning out and earthing up the plants, so as to leave each in the centre of a little hill, some two feet distant from its nearest neighbors. The dexterity and accuracy with which this feat is accomplished are wonderful; and there are few spectacles more animated and picturesque than that of a hundred active field-hands flourishing their bright hoes among the young vegetation, each striving to outstrip the others in "hoeing out his row." Several ploughings and hoeings intervene between the first of May and the last of June. In July the cotton fields burst into bloom, _creaming_ the landscape with a sea of blossoms, the flower being very nearly of the same tint as the ultimate product in its unbleached state. The new beauty thus imparted to the scenery is, however, ephemeral. The blossoms unfold in the night, are in their full glory in the morning, and by noon have begun to fade. On the following day their cream-color has changed to a dull red, and before sunset the petals have fallen, leaving inclosed in the calyx the germ or "form" of the filamental fruit. The cotton plant, in its progress towards maturity, is liable to the assaults of as many enemies as the young crocodile on the banks of the Nile; but among them all, the "army-worm" is the most destructive. This worm is produced from the eggs of a chocolate-colored moth of particularly harmless and demure appearance; but its name is legion, its ravages terrific. No one who has beheld an invasion of these caterpillars can ever forget it. Deep trenches are dug to arrest their progress, but these are soon filled up by the accumulating myriads; and onward move the living destroyers over the bodies of the buried masses. Huge logs are drawn through the trenches by yokes of oxen, and the multitudinous swarms crushed to a paste, of which the effluvium taints the air for miles; but still the incursion, if checked, is not arrested. When the planter sees the army-worm in his fields, he is ready to give up his crop in despair.