8 WEEVIL-RESISTING ADAPTATIONS OF COTTON. 



two years before that a field of dwarf cotton cultivated by the Indians 

 did not suffer from the boll weevils, though these pests were abundant 

 on a " tree cotton " a short distance away. 



The kelep afforded an entirely unexpected and yet very striking 

 explanation of the fact that cotton was being grown as a regular 

 field crop in a region which had probably been infested with weevils 

 for many centuries, if it were not, indeed, the original home of the 

 species. That there was an insect in existence specially qualified 

 by structure and habits to attack, disable, and devour the boll weevil, 

 was welcome news in the United States, and in accordance with cabled 

 instructions from the Secretary of Agriculture numerous colonies 

 of the keleps were brought home and colonized in the cotton fields 

 of Texas. 



The finding of the kelep explained the failure of the weevils to 

 prevent cotton cultivations in eastern Guatemala, and seemed at first 

 to diminish the prospects of weevil resistance in the cotton itself. 

 Nevertheless, the intention of studying Guatemalan varieties of cot- 

 ton and the cultural methods in use in that country was not aban- 

 doned, and the results are not without bearing on the original ques- 

 tion of the causes of the apparent immunity of the Guatemalan 

 cottons, and also upon the more practical question of securing cotton 

 varieties and cultural methods by which the injuries of the boll 

 weevil in the United States may be reduced to a minimum. 



The Guatemalan cotton protected by the keleps is a genuine Up- 

 land variety, very early and productive, with a fiber of good length 

 and texture, as already stated. In addition to features which di- 

 rectly favor the keleps, it has many other qualities which may 

 render it useful, even without its insect guardians. In former reports 

 it has been compared with the very early Upland varieties, such as 

 King and Parker; but comparative tests made in eastern Guatemala 

 show that the native variety, which it is proposed to call Kekchi, 

 represents a very distinct type of this important cultivated plant. 

 It belongs to Gossypium hirsutum, the Upland species or series of 

 varieties, in the sense that it is not a Sea Island, Egyptian, or Kidney 

 cotton, but it is distinctly more different from any of the Upland 

 varieties now cultivated in the United States than these are from each 

 other. It has not been ascertained that the Kekchi cotton in its 



a The Sea Island cotton is so called because cotton of this type is cultivated 

 on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, long famous for the excellence of their 

 product. The Sea Island cotton came originally from Barbados, whence also 

 its botanical name, Gossypium barbadense. 



Upland cotton gained its name as a means of distinguishing it from the Sea 

 Island, being cultivated in the interior, or '• upland," districts of the Southern 

 States. The Upland type of cotton was recognized as a distinct species by 

 Linmeus under the name Gossypium hirsutum, but many subsequent writers 



