COTTON OR WEEVILS 15 
chines, this means at night. When the airplane is used, the dusting 
is usually done as much as possible during the very early morning 
hours. 
Always remember that calcium arsenate is a poison and must 
be handled very carefully. Wear gloves whenever you use the 
powder and never get any of it in your mouth. 
About 5 pounds of the poison should be dusted on each acre of the 
cotton at any onetime. The plants should have their second dusting 
at the end of four days unless it rains, and then the plants should be 
_ redusted just as soon as the rain stops. Usually about three dustings 
will be enoug: to bring the weevils under control. If the weevils 
should get numerous enough later in the season to injure the cotton, 
you can dust once or twice more. A heavy rainfall within 24 hours 
after. dusting will wash the poison off the plants; in such a case the 
field should be dusted again immediately. 
OTHER WAYS OF DESTROYING WEEVILS AND HELPING THE 
COTTON PLANTS TO GROW A GOOD CROP 
We should not depend upon the poison alone, however, to protect 
our cotton crop from the boll weevil. Sometimes it is not necessary 
to go to the expense of poisoning the weevils. Other means of control 
may be enough to protect the crop. 
One of the most important control methods we can use is the de- 
struction of the cotton plants m the early fall. You know that in the 
fall there are likely to be great numbers of baby boll weevils in the 
squares and bolls which are still on the plants at this time. If these 
are left in the fields the baby weevils will grow into adults and then 
go into their winter sleep. Those that live through the winter will 
attack the young cotton plants next spring. ‘To prevent this, we 
should burn or completely plow under all the cotton plants standing 
after the crop is gathered. If we do this we shall destroy all the 
weevil grubs and pupe before they are able to grow any more. In 
ae to get the best results we should do this before the first killing 
rost. ; 
As the weevils use any kind of grass or weeds for shelter, it would 
be a good thing to clean up along fence rows,.all the ditches on the 
farm, and around the edges of our cotton fields. If we do this 
thoroughly, the weevils will have no place to spend the winter and 
will then be killed by the cold. 
If we can not clean up before frost time, it is often a good thing 
to pasture our fields with livestock, letting the animals eat as much 
of the plants as they will. This is perfectly safe for stock, even if 
poison has been used earlier in the season. Not enough poison will 
stay on the plants to hurt the grazing animals. 
Now we come to the two most important points in raising a 
cotton crop in those parts of the country where the boll weevils are. 
Always select cotton seed of a kind that will grow and produce ripe 
cotton as quickly as possible, then plant this seed as early in the 
spring as possible after all danger from frost is past. If we can 
use a kind of cotton that will grow and ripen quickly and if we can 
start it to growing early enough in the spring, you can easily see 
that there will be a chance for the crop to ripen, or at least a part 
of it, before the boll weevils get numerous enough to do serious 
