72 WEEVIL-RESISTING ADAPTATIONS OF COTTON. 



stolid, uncommunicative people, from whom little information is 

 likely to be obtained except as replies to direct questions. Familiar 

 from their earliest childhood with the agricultural lore of their own 

 tribe, it does not occur to them that these everyday incidents can be 

 of interest to the white stranger, or if they perceive his interest they 

 learned long since to fear it as a danger of further intrusion. Even 

 our own cotton experiments were misunderstood as a menace of addi- 

 tional demands for lands from the white men who now own so large 

 a part of the country. 



SUMMARY OF ADAPTATIONS. 



If the facts stated in the present report have been correctly observed 

 and interpreted, we must admit that the cotton plant is in a high 

 state of adaptive specialization in its relations with its now famous 

 insect enemy, the boll weevil. Indeed, it may be that the most dis- 

 tinctive and important characters of the plant, from both the botan- 

 ical and the agricultural standpoints — such as the involucre, the 

 nectaries, the oil glands, the large bolls, and the very lint itself — 

 are adaptive features which the selective influence of the weevil has 

 brought to their present degree of development. 



CLASSIFICATION OF ADAPTATIONS. 



The adaptations of the cotton plant might be summarized from 

 three different standpoints. A historical treatment would proceed 

 from the adaptations of the bolls to those of the buds. Breeding in 

 the buds, for instance, was evidently a later adaptation on the part 

 of the weevils which has called for a second set of the protective 

 characters on the part of the plant. 



It may be better, however, to classify the adaptations as such, 

 without special regard to their historical sequence of derivation. 

 The more practical purposes are served by dividing the adaptations 

 into four groups : ( 1 ) Those calculated to avoid the weevils by gen- 

 eral habits of growth; (2) those which exclude the weevils, or at 

 least hinder their operations in the buds and bolls; (3) those which 

 attract insect enemies such as the weevil-eating kelep; (4) those 

 which prevent the development of the weevil larvse, even after the 

 eggs have been laid. 



ADAPTATIONS TO AVOID WEEVILS. 



1. Determinate growth. 



2. Early bearing. 



3. Long basal branches. 



4. Early rejection of superfluous squares. 



5. Seasonal bearing of perennial varieties. 

 0. Prompt bearing after cutting back. 



7. Hairy stalks and leaf stems. 



8. Pendent bolls. 



1). Rapid growth of young bolls. 



