Louisiana — Circular No. 13. 



On Feb. 28t]i, 1907, Mr. J. B. Garrett, one of the Field 

 Agents assigned by the Bureau to work with the Commission, 

 tendered his resignation in order to accept a position at the 

 North Louisiana Experiment Station. After some delay, Mr. 

 Clarence E. Hood, of Amherst, Mass., was appointed by the 

 Bureau to succeed Mr. Garrett. 



Upon April 1st, Mr. C. W. Flynn, who was also a special 

 Field Agent of the Bureau of Entomology, resigned his position 

 as such to take charge of actual field work for the Commission 

 in the work of cattle tick eradication. Mr. T. C. Paulsen, of 

 Baton Rouge, has been appointed by the Honorable Secretary 

 of Agriculture to fill out Mr. Flynn 's unexpired term, until 

 June 30, 1907. 



On account of the congressional appropriation for boU 

 weevil investigations having been much reduced by the last 

 Congress, the Bureau of Entomology will not be able to assign 

 more than two men to the investigation work in Louisiana during 

 the coming fiscal year, which commences on July 1. 



In co-operation with the Bureau of Entomology, we have 

 R'ade plans for cultural experiments at Mansfield and at Marks- 

 ville, La., the prime object in both cases being to test the cultural 

 remedy for the boll weevil under local conditions and upon 

 different soils, and also to. give planters in these sections an 

 opportunity to actually visit the experimental fields and note 

 the methods employed. 



A new line of work in connection with the weevil investiga- 

 tion is being undertaken. This is a study of the different species 

 of insects Avhich prey upon, or are parasitic upon, the boll weevil, 

 or which are manifesting a tendency to acquire a taste for the 

 weevil. Preliminary investigations of this subject already made 

 by Dr. Hunter in Texas have revealed a number of natural 

 enemies of the weevil which can without doubt be artificially 

 iTJcreased and so distributed that each of the natural enemies 

 shall be disseminated over the entire weevil infested territory. 

 This is an attempt to utilize Nature's own forces and methods 

 in solving the problem, and I incline to the opinion that in this 

 direction will be found the ultimate satisfactory solution of the 

 boll weevil problem. 



