38 FAKMEES' BULLETIN 848. 



the seed in chemicals in the hope of making the phints that are to 

 grow from them distasteful or poisonous to the insect. Any money 

 expended by the farmer in follo^^dng this absm-d practice is entirely 

 wasted. 



Other 'proposed remedies. — Many remedies for the destniction 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 prac- 

 tically all cases are based upon faulty observations or careless 

 experiments; The strong tendency of the weevil to die in confine- 

 ment, wliich has been referred to, has caused many honest persons 

 to suppose that the substances they are applying have Idlled it. 

 Moreover, an insuperable difficulty that has been encountered in the 

 case of these special preparations is the impracticability of applying 

 them 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 strildng instance of the un- 

 warranted claims of some discoverers of " remedies " for the weevil 

 was the case of a man who demonstrated the efficacy of his prepara- 

 tion by placing a feather in the bottle containing it and applying this 

 to a weevil in Tiis hand. Of course the death of the weevil was very 

 far from a demonstration of the practical woiking of the supposed 

 remedy. 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 macliines have been constructed to 

 collect the weevils from the plants, or the bolls and squares from the 

 ground. These have consisted of suction and jarring devices. 

 Many of them will destroy a certain number of weevils, but the 

 habits of the insect are such that none has been found to yield 

 results that pay even a small portion of the cost of operation. It is 

 emphasized in this connection that there are plenty of proper ways 

 in which all available mechanical ingenuity may be utilized in the 

 fight pgainst the weevil. There is great need for effective macliines 

 for assisting in the destruction of the weevils in the fall, and also for 

 assistance in the cultivation of the crop. The present implements 

 for cultivation, wliile effective ia their way, coidd be improved in 

 many respects, especially for the purpose of hastening the matm'ity 

 of the crop. For instance, cidtivators to estabhsh a dust mulch 

 rather than to plow the ground are much needed. There are some 

 cultivator attacliments, such as the spring-tooth attachment, which 

 are exceedingly useful tools in maintaining a surface dust mulch, but 

 these are not as yet in general use. 



