CONCLUDING REMARKS. 75 



is rendered impossible by the opening of the flower. Then ensues 

 another period of immunity while the withered flower remains in 

 place and while the bolls are still too small to be attacked. Between 

 about the quarter and the three-quarter size the bolls can still be 

 parasitized, though proliferation reduces the successful attempts to a 

 very small percentage. But after the lint has grown out, the lining 

 has hardened, and the Avails have become thick, the boll is well-nigh 

 impregnable, though the surface may be roughened by a dozen or 

 a score of warts, which mark the location of as many persistent but 

 ineffectual attempts to gain entrance. 



As an instance of adaptive specialization the cotton plant seems des- 

 tined to a very high rank. The development of such a series of pro- 

 tective characters can scarcely be explained except upon the suppo- 

 sition that the culture of cotton in Guatemala is extremely ancient, 

 and of this there are many other indications. 



The practical utilization of these protective characters in the cotton 

 industry of the United States may require the solution of many pre- 

 liminary problems of acclimatization and adaptation, as well as of 

 physiology and cultural methods. The proliferation characters, for 

 example, appear to be much more pronounced in some varieties than 

 in others, but they are also affected, probably to a very considerable 

 extent, by conditions of climate or soil which check the growth of 

 the plant or cut down its water supply and thus reduce the normal 

 turgidity of the tissues. 



The weevil -resisting characters are much more highly developed in 

 the variety of cotton cultivated by the Kekchi Indians of eastern 

 Guatemala than in any other type yet known, and it produces also 

 large bolls and lint of good length and quality, so that it may be of 

 value in the United States. But even though the Kekchi cotton in 

 its present form should prove, for any reason, not to be adapted to 

 cultural conditions in the United States, it demonstrates, at least, the 

 fact that the Upland type of cotton is capable of assuming other 

 characters which will render it far better adapted to cultivation in 

 the presence of the boll weevil than the varieties hitherto grown in 

 the United States. 



a That the transfer to Texas will not destroy the proliferating habit of the 

 Kekchi cotton is shown by the following report from Mr. McLachlan : 



" On the 23d of August Mr. Kinsler and I made a comparative examina- 

 tion of four varieties of cotton at Mackay, Tex., to determine the nature of 

 their proliferation. Rows of Kekchi cotton from Secanquim and Lanquin, and 

 two of native Upland varieties (Parker and King) were compared. The results. 

 in brief, are that in squares the Kekchi cotton proliferated much more readily 

 than did the native varieties. In the bolls all four varieties were about equally 

 active in this protective adaptation. The extent of proliferation in the Guate- 

 malan bolls was, if different in any way, somewhat greater than in the native 

 varieties." 



