22 
are given, therefore, merely as a means of correcting an evil which may 
result if the cultural system referred to has been neglected. These 
remarks apply, for instance, to the trap system, which we have hitherto 
recommended among others. This consists of attracting the earliest 
beetles to a few cotton plants left at convenient points and protected 
from winter killing by forced watering, so that they will branch out 
and acquire buds often in advance of volunteer cotton. From these 
the beetles may be collected by hand when they are attracted to them 
by the first warm days, or, preferably, these plants may be poisoned, 
as already suggested. 
The fact that the spring generation develops only upon volunteer 
cotton has suggested the possibility that the insect will not spread 
beyond the region where volunteer cotton will grow in spring, but 
unfortunately this possibility is by no means absolutely to be relied 
upon. Nevertheless, the destruction of such volunteer plants as come 
up in cornfields and in abandoned fields which the previous year were 
planted to cotton, unless they be systematically poisoned, can not be 
too strongly recommended, for it is a matter of observation that the 
shade afforded by the corn or the rank-growing weeds which come up 
in abandoned fields is especially favorable to the development of the 
weevils. 
While the plants are young, and where labor is as cheap as it is in 
south Texas, a great deal of good can be accomplished by picking and 
burning the fallen squares, and if this is done promptly a large number 
of the insects will be destroyed. It should be done at least twice, at 
intervals of three weeks, during the period while the plants are small. 
As soon as the plants begin to branch out, however, this method becomes 
impracticable, on account of the difficulty of finding the squares on the 
ground. 
The idea of picking the affected bolls during the cotton picking was 
suggested in the writer’s first published account of this insect. It was 
thought that the affected bolls could be so readily recognized that many 
thousands of the insects could be destroyed by the cotton pickers by 
picking these affected bolls and carrying them away in a separate recep- 
tacle to be burned. The amount of extra labor involved in this opera- 
tion, however, would be very considerable, and the affected bolls in 
many instances are not to be recognized at a glance. 
During the past year Mr. Stronhall, of Beeville, has devised a 
machine for jarring the affected squares and blossoms from young cot- 
ton plants and collecting them at the same time. This apparatus 
has been given a partial demonstration the past season and seems to 
do fair work. It is arranged to brush the cotton from both directions 
vigorously, and the loosened bolls and squares are caught on receiv- 
ing trays and ultimately burned or otherwise destroyed. ‘The brushes 
work in opposite directions and strike the cotton plants on either side. 
It can be adjusted to plants of different ages. 
