April, '11] townsend: cotton square-weevil 241 



Several pests of lesser importance occurred during the year. Currants 

 suffered rather extensively from currant Sawflies. Cattle were much 

 annoyed by Horn flies which were more numerous than ever before in 

 Manitoba, in spite of a very dry season. Stable flies also appeared 

 in greater numbers than usual, while several species of Tabanus were 

 unusually prevalent in July. House flies seemed to invade the whole 

 country, not even the prairie far removed from dwellings being free 

 from them. 



THE COTTON SQUARE-WEEVIL OF PERU AND ITS BEAR- 

 ING ON THE BOLL-WEEVIL PROBLEM IN NORTH 



AMERICA 



By Charles H. T. Townsend, Piura, Peru 



The year 1864 witnessed the first modern planting of cotton in 

 northern Peru. Several years of civil war in the United States had 

 so shortened the world's cotton supply that promise of great profit 

 was held out to the Peruvian planter. This, therefore, was the 

 reason for the beginning of cotton cultivation on a large scale in the 

 Department of Piura, which now produces and has produced for 

 many years one of the very finest qualities of cotton fiber in the 

 world. 



The first year's cultivation seems to have developed no noticeable 

 plague. The following year a considerable area near the Andean 

 foothills was planted to cotton. This region is cooler and moister 

 during the summer than are the Piura and Chira river valleys, where 

 the planting of the previous year had been done. In this foothill 

 region there was observed at that time a condition which has ever 

 since been known in Peru as the "hielo" of cotton. Its chief symp- 

 tom is the falling of the squares before the flower opens. It was 

 considered to be due to cold, whence the name, the word "hielo" 

 Hterally meaning ice. 



While the temperature in this region, from coast to foothills, never 

 falls below 50° or 60' F., yet in the lower valleys the nights in July 

 and August become very cold by comparison with the summer heat 

 of January to March. The humidity is also' greater in the former 

 months, in fact, from May or June to October or November. 



The falling of the squares was so serious in the above-mentioned 

 foothill area as to cause the abandonment of cotton culture there 

 later on. During the forty-five years that have elapsed since then, the 

 so-called hielo has caused more or less serious damage to the cotton 

 crop throughout the Department of Piura, as well as in other parts 



