IKSECTS IXJURIOUS TO COTTON. 209 



Remedies. — The following suggestions as to the best 

 methods for the control of this pest have been largely 

 gleaned from a forthcoming report of Mr. W. D. Hunter,* 

 a special agent of the Division of Entomology, U • S. Dept. 

 Agriculture, who has made an extended investigation of the 

 matter daring the season of 1001 (Mar. — Dec.) and which 

 comprises the previously expressed opinions of Dr. Howard f 

 and his assistants, Messrs. Maria tt and Schwarz, as to the 

 importance of better cultural methods for its control. 



Inasmuch as the pest is notably w^orst where the top 

 crop is gathered late into the fall, the most obvious, and 

 as the experience and investigations of the past five years 

 have shown, the best and most practical means for its 

 control is in the entire abandonment of the top crop and 

 the destruction of the plants by October, or earlier. The 

 value of the late fall top crop seems to be very much over- 

 estimated, as very often it hardly pays for the picking and 

 in the last twenty years onh^ four or five top crops of any 

 value have been secured. As the beetles hibernate over 

 winter in the bolls and among the old plants, the immediate 

 destruction of the plants in the fall will destroy most of 

 the weevils. The plants may be cut with a stalk-chopper 

 or thrown out with a plow, and should then be burned. 

 After this the plowing of infested land to the depth of 

 6 or 8 inches is advisable. Tn this way all the larvae and 

 pupfe in the cotton at the time are destroyed, as well as 

 many of the weevils; the adult beetles are buried by the 

 deep plowing and will never again reach the surface; the 

 removal of the stalks and rubbish prevents their hiberna- 



* To appear in Yearbook, U. 8. Dept. Agr., 1901. 

 t "The Mexican Cotton Boll-weevil," Circular 14, 3d Ser., Div. 

 Eut., U. S. Dept. Agr., L. O. Howard. 



