246 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



Ancon and Supo, cotton fii})rics wore known and used at a period long before the 

 Christian era. The native cotton i)lants of central and southern Peru of prehistoric 

 times wcrQ quite different from those introduced from North America artd else- 

 where. That variety which is cultivated at Piura is closely related to the native 

 plant of pre-Spanish Peru (central) and also to the Algodon silveslre of the region 

 east of the Andes, both in size and in general type, and doubtless is a derivation of the 

 primitive native plant. I do not know whcrefrom (in Africa or Europe) it could 

 have been introduced originally. I, as an archa'ologist, am satisfied to regard it as 

 a native plant. It is, however, remarkahh; that there is a cotton plant of similarly high 

 stature and like perennial character in India. This is a question I leave to the bot- 

 anists to (^lear up. 



Mr. (}. H. Powell, acting chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 in Wasliiiifiton, in the absence of Doctor Galloway, chief of the Bureau 

 writes as follows: 



I beg leave to state that the nearest wild relatives of the cotton plant are all natives 

 of America, and the tree cottons of the American tropics have doubtless always been 

 American. In the northern part of the Andes the natives knew how to spin cotton 

 even before they were acquainted with the llama and vicuna, as is shown by the 

 numerous clay spinning toi)S found in Colombia. Almost all of the primitive lan- 

 guages of Central and South America have distinct words for cotton. The origin 

 of our present upland cotton is somewhat in doubt, however, and recently evidence 

 has been presented with the object of proving that tlu; upland type of cotton was . 

 first develojM'd in Asia. 



The Asiatic series of cottons have no representatives in the New World, except such 

 as are known to have been introduced; and, on the other hand, Asia possesses no 

 species of Ingenhouzia and Cienjuegosia, the nearest wild relatives of the cottons. 



Prof. T, A. Cockerell, of the University of Colorado, writes: 



The genus Gossypium has native species in the neotropical, Ethiopian, Australian 

 and Oriental regions— even {G. drymarioides) in Hawaiian Islands. It is evidently 

 an ancient genus. The Australian species are perhaps to be separated as Sturlia R. 

 Br. 1849. 



The consensus of opinion thus seems in favor of the nativity of 

 cotton in America, and I ^vill not attempt to deny its probability. 

 It has certainly quite evidently existed here for a very long period of 

 time. 



It is thus possible that the square-weevil has, in any event, existed 

 in Peru as a pest of cotton for upwards of 2,000 years. The Incas 

 cultivated cotton here, probably more in the cooler and damper areas 

 of the country than in the present area. It is significant that the 

 weevil took hold of the crop the second year of its more recent planting 

 in Piura (1865). It must have been present in the country, perhaps 

 in wild cotton. Similarly it is probable that the boll-weevil has existed 

 in cotton in Central America for a much longer period than 2,000 



