It should be remembered that the white arsenic recommended is 

 very caustic and is very much more apt to burn or scald plants than 

 are the other arsenicals just mentioned, and it is quite probable that 

 either London purple or arsenite of copper, which are of about the 

 same cost as white arsenic, will be preferable to the latter. 



The cheap grade of molasses referred to can be laid down in Texas 

 at a rate of 10 cents per gallon. White arsenic costs about 10 cents 

 a pound retail, but wholesale can be obtained for much less. London 

 purple and Paris green also cost about 10 cents a pound retail. A 

 barrel of the mixture at the prices quoted will cost about 25 cents, 

 and should spray an acre or more of young planted cotton. The 

 much heavier mixture for volunteer cotton is used in very limited 

 quantities and a small amount will cover a large area. The direc- 

 tions and cautions given at the outset for spraying for the boll weevil 

 are equally applicable to the molasses and arsenic wash described. 

 For field work, however, a large machine is necessarj^ such as the 

 mounted horse spray machines commonly used for treatment of 

 potato farms. 



It should be remembered that this treatment rests merely on some 

 preliminary experiments made with confined weevils on poisoned 

 plants, and its success on a large scale remains to be demonstrated. 

 Its greatest value will come, undoubtedlj^ in the treatment of vol- 

 unteer plants and young planted cotton, and its success with the lat- 

 ter will, undoubtedly, diminish as soon as the plants have formed a 

 head or become at all bushy. It is given publicity by means of this 

 circular, to get planters to test it fully in field trials, which alone will 

 demonstrate its value or worthlessness. 



THE CULTURAL METHOD OF CONTROLLING THE BOLL W^EEVIL. 



It should be remembered that the poisoning of the volunteer and 

 also of the young planted cotton is suggested merely as a means of 

 correcting a condition which has resulted from imperfect cultivation, 

 and that the great value of the cultural method of control should 

 not be lost sight of. 



The description of this method given in our last circular on the 

 boll weevil is as follows : 



The careful investigation of this weevil during the past two or three years by 

 the Division of Entomology has fully demonstrated the supreme importance of 

 the cultural method of control, to which fact we gave special prominence in our 

 first circular on this insect. There can be no question now that in the i)roper 

 system of growing cotton a practically complete remedy for the weevil exists. 

 In the first place, it has been established beyond question that the conditions of 

 cultivation which make volunteer growth possible also make the continuance 



