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attracted to lights to any extent whatever. Im one experiment a 
number of strong lanterns were placed in cotton fields in Victoria 
County, Tex. In all, 24,492 specimens of insects were captured, repre- 
senting about 328 species. Of these, 13,113 specimens belong to 
injurious species, 8,262 to beneficial species, and 3,111 were of a 
neutral character. Not a single boll weevil was found among all 
these specimens, notwithstanding the fact that the lights were placed 
in the midst of fields where there were millions of these insects. 
Chemical treatment of seed.—It is scarcely necessary to call atten- 
tion to the fallacy of attempting to destroy the boll weevil by soak- 
ing the seed in chemicals in a hope of making the plants that are to 
grow from them distasteful or poisonous to the insect. Any money 
expended by the farmer in following this absurd practice is entirely 
wasted. 
Other proposed remedies——Many remedies for the destruction of the 
weevil, consisting of sprays, poisons, and fumigants or “ smokes,” 
have been proposed. Hundreds of these proposed remedies have 
been carefully investigated. The claims of their advocates in 
practically all cases are based upon faulty observations or careless 
experiments. The strong tendency of the weevil to die in confine- 
ment, which has been referred to, has caused many honest persons to 
suppose that the substances they are applying have killed it. More- 
over, an insuperable difficulty that these special preparations have 
encountered is the impracticability of the application in the field. 
Hundreds of known substances will kill the weevil when brought in 
contact with it. The difficulty is to apply them in an economical way 
in the field. A striking instance of the unwarranted claims of some 
discoverers of “ remedies ” for the weevil was the case of a man who 
demonstrated the efficacy of his preparation by placing a feather in 
the bottle containing it and applying this to a weevil in his hand. 
Of course the death of the weevil was very far from a demonstration 
of the practical working of the supposed remedy. On account of the 
many difficulties in reaching the weevil and the necessity of obtaining 
special machinery for applications of poisons or sprays in the field, 
it is now considered, after much careful experimentation, that there 
is only the remotest hope of any such substances being of any prac- 
tical avail whatever in the fight against the boll weevil. The claims 
made at different times of the repellent power of tobacco, castor-bean 
plants, and pepper plants against the boll weevil have no foundation 
whatever. In fact, none of these plants has the least effect in keeping 
weevils away from cotton. 
Mechanical devices—Many machines have been constructed to col- 
lect the weevils from the plants, or the bolls and squares from the 
ground. These have consisted of suction and jarring devices. Many 
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