GENERAL PROTECTIVE CHARACTERS. 11 



It is now known that in the plateau region of Mexico the long dry 

 season effectually excludes the weevil, so that varieties of cotton from 

 the Mexican highlands, instead of being weevil-proof, as sometimes 

 represented, may have no immunity whatever when brought into 

 the much more moist climate of the cotton belt of the United States. 



The Kekchi cotton of Guatemala, on the other hand, has to a much 

 greater degree than any of the varieties now grown in the United 

 States the very qualities which experiment has shown to be effective 

 for the mitigation by cultural means of the injuries inflicted by the 

 boll weevil. That it has, in addition, other features not possessed 

 by our United States varieties, or not hitherto interpreted as weevil- 

 resisting adaptations, need not be looked upon as anything outside 

 the normal order of nature, but is entirely in accord with what 

 appears to be the biological and agricultural history of the cotton 

 plant in Central America. 



GENERAL PROTECTIVE CHARACTERS. 



DWARF HABIT AXD DETERMINATE GROWTH OF KEKCHI COTTOX. 



Although Guatemala is a tropical country and the climatic condi- 

 tions are suitable for the growth of cotton throughout the year, the 

 Kekchi cotton is cultivated only as an annual, and is smaller and 

 more determinate in its habits of growth than the Upland varieties 

 now known in the United States. It soon attains its full height, 

 and after a crop of bolls has set on the lower branches there is a 

 definite tendency to cease growing or producing new buds. The 

 later upward growth of the plants seems to be supplementary, as it 

 were, to the formation of the bolls; often there appear to be no 

 more flowers formed, and many of those which come seem to be 

 undersized, as though the plant were really mature and were 

 approaching the natural termination of its existence. Our Upland 

 varieties, on the contrary, continue to produce throughout the season 

 hundreds of small squares on each plant which serve only as breed- 

 ing places for the weevils. 



The explanation of the high development of these short-season 

 qualities of the Kekchi cotton is doubtless to be found in the custom 

 of the Indians, who pull up the cotton as soon as the bulk of the crop 

 has ripened to make room for the peppers, which are always planted 

 with the cotton. For the Indians the peppers are an even more 

 important crop than the cotton, so that when the time comes for 

 clearing away the cotton they do not wait for the plants which may 

 have delayed maturity. Late bolls, even, would never come to 

 maturity or furnish seed for planting. The result has been a very 

 long-sustained selection for early bearing and uniform ripening of 

 the crop. Some of our earliest Upland sorts may begin blossoming 



