6 



MISC. PUBLICATION 3 5, XT. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



flower bud the weevil, if a female, begins to lay eggs. This we call 

 the beginning of another generation. It usually takes from two to 

 three weeks, depending on the weather, for a generation to develop 

 through the different stages of egg, larva, and pupa, to the adult 

 form. There are several generations each year, made up of males 

 and females in about equal numbers. 



THE DAMAGE A WEEVIL DOES 



The female weevil seems to like to lay her eggs in the flower bud 

 of the cotton plant. She likes the bud much better than she does 

 any other part of the plant. Sometimes there are not enough flower 

 buds for all the eggs and then the female has to hunt some other 



Fig. 4. — This shows bow the three outside leaves, or bracts, flare out when the inside 

 of the flower bud, or square, has been eaten away by the boll-weevil grub. A and 

 (' are healthy flower buds. B is a flared bud which has been eaten out by a weevil 

 grub. About two-thirds natural size 



place to put them. If it is late enough in the season for the plant 

 to have bolls, she will lay her eggs in these. 



A boll, you understand, is the fruit of the plant and is what the 

 flower bud grows into. The boll is not a fruit such as man can eat. 

 This word "fruit" is hard to understand sometimes because we use 

 it in two different ways. Some speak of fruit as that part of a plant 

 that one can eat. A botanist — that is, a man who studies plants — 

 calls the fruit that part of the plant that makes the seed. Many 

 plants first form buds which grow into flowers and then these make 

 seeds. A botanist calls this the fruit of the plant, regardless of 

 whether we can eat it or not. Many plants, such as the ferns and 

 mosses, do not make fruit in this way, but most of our common 

 plants do. 



After the flower buds on the cotton plant open into blossoms the 

 bright, showy parts soon fade and drop off. What is left after the 



