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Under this heading of "farm practice we wish to call 

 especial attention to an insect that will in the course of 

 three or four years be of immense importance to the cotton 

 growers of the state. Keference is here made to the Mexi 

 can Cotton Boll Weevil, an insect which has not yet made 

 its appearance in Alabama, but whose arrival can be pre- 

 dicted with a fair degree of certainty. While the exact 

 date of the introduction of this pest to this country is 

 not known, yet it must have come here a short time before 

 the year 1894, when the attention of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology of the U. S. Department of Agriculture was first 

 called to it. It was then present and harmful to cotton in 

 some seven or eight counties of Texas. Since that time, 

 in spite of all control efforts, it has spread over a larger 

 and larger territory until now the limit of its eastern dis- 

 persion is within thirty miles of the Mississippi river. Be- 

 sides the enormous loss to the cotton crops in the states at 

 present most affected by this pest, Texas and Louisiana; 

 many thousands of dollars have been spent by these states 

 and by the Bureau of Entomology in studies of the insect 

 and in devising ways and means of control. These studies 

 have developed, among other important items, the fact that 

 the Mexican Cotton Boll Weevil hibernates as an adult. 

 This means that a certain proportion of the full grown 

 weevils live in the cotton fields, or in adjacent situations, 

 through the winter and from these overwintering individu- 

 als are produced the first of the new series of weevils the fol- 

 lowing spring. A further important fact is that this weevil 

 is confined to the cotton for its food. Based on these two 

 facts is the method of control of this pest that has proved 

 most satisfactory and it is one of "farm practice" purely. 

 The method is in brief, as follows: First, plant as early 

 as can be and avoid possible frost injury, using seed of 

 some early maturing variety of cotton. Second, by thor- 

 ough cultivation and the use of fertilizers force the cotton 

 to early maturity. Third, as soon as the crop is made re- 

 move by cutting out, raking to windrows and burning, all 

 cotton plants. While this procedure involves a change in 



