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No. 27, SECOND SERIES. 
United States Department of Agriculture, 
DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
THE MEXICAN COTTON-BOLL WEEVIL IN 1897. 
PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS. 
Soon after the Mexican cotton-boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) 
made its appearance in Texas cotton-fields a circular (No. 6, n. s.) 
was prepared by the writer and distributed during April, 1895, to 
cotton planters living in the infested regions. The results of the 
work during 1895 were published in Circular No. 14, of this series, 
and distributed to Texas cotton planters in February, 1896. An 
edition of the same circular in Spanish was published during the 
same month. The results obtained by the work of 1896 were given 
in the circular (18 of this series) published in February, 1897. This 
Circular No. 18 gives in complete form the life history of the insect, 
its habits, and the remedy to be used against it. It also contains 
information regarding its distribution in Texas at the close of the 
season of 1896. Editions of this circular in the Spanish and German 
languages were published during the same month for distribution to 
Mexicans and Germans living in south Texas, who are more familiar 
with their native language than with English. 
SCOPE OF PRESENT CIRCULAR. 
The ground of the natural history of the insect and the remedies 
having been so fully discussed in Circular No. 18, the edition of 
which is as yet by no means exhausted, it will be necessary at this 
time simply to give the facts concerning the work of the insect dur- 
ing the summer of 1897. 
THE OBSERVATIONS OF THE SEASON OF 1897. 
As injurious as this insect has been, especially during the summer 
and autumn of 1895, and less so in the two succeeding years, to the 
planters whose fields it has actually entered, a greater cause for 
alarm existed through the probability of its spread into more impor- 
tant cotton-growing regions. Thus the reports of damage in 1895 
greatly disturbed the cotton planters not only of the rich country 
lying to the north and east of the infested region in the State of 
Texas, but also the planters of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and 
Georgia. It was at first thought that the spread of the insect into 
these regions would be certain and rapid. The investigations of the 
first season largely negatived this possibility, and now, after three 
seasons’ observations, it appears that the spread of the insect toward 
