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has been generally introduced several years since.* It has been found 
to be perfectly feasible to use the poison in the pure state, i. e., without 
admixture of flour, thus saving the cost of the ingredients and the 
trouble in mixing. Some farmers still persist in poisoning only two 
rows of cotton at one time. The practice most prevailing now in Texas 
is to cover three rows at one time, i. e., the two rows between which 
the mule or horse is trotting, and adjacent parts of the two adjoining 
rows. Where cotton is smaller and the rows closer together it has 
been found practicable to poison more than 3 rows at a time, and as 
many as 8 rows have been effectually treated by planters in the cane- 
brake region of Alabama in 1889 and 1890.t 
The great waste of poison that is inevitably connected with the pole 
system, and the want of uniformity in the distribution of the poison 
over the plants, led to the invention of several machines intended for 
the even distribution of a given amount of dry poison over many rows. 
The increase of the worms in the year 1889 was the impetus tbat brought 
forth these machines. So far as I could learn three machines were pat- 
ented in 1890 — the "Koach cotton worm destroyer," patented by the 
James P. Eoach Manufacturing Company, Vicksburg, Miss.; the "Bich- 
ard's dry poison distributer," patented by Richards & Co., LaGrange, 
Tex. (U. S. patent, Xo. 423814, March 18, 1890), and the Brown machine, 
manufactured and sold by L. M. Eumsey & Co., St. Louis, Mo. Owing to 
the fact that these machines had not been used for at least two years, I 
had great difficulty in seeing any of them, and those 1 saw were in rather 
dilapidated condition. Owing to the high price (850 and upward) very 
few of these machines have been sold, and on my trip I met only with a 
few planters who have used the Richards and Brown machines.t Cir- 
culars sent out by the inventors claim that in a favorable breeze the poison 
is blown from the machine over 15 rows of cotton or more, while I was 
informed by planters that from? to 8 rows can be satisfactorily poisoned 
during calm weather, but that owing to the unreliable negro labor the 
working of the machines in the field has to be constantly superintended^ 
After passing through four of the most important cotton States 1 
have come to the conclusion that these machines will never become 
very popular, mainly for the reason that the pole system has given such 
*I have not been able to ascertain on my trip when and where this improvement 
was first suggested. 
t The practice of dusting many rows of cotton with the pole system in the state 
of Alabama has been fully treated of by Prof. G. F. Atkinson in Bull. 17, Ala. Agr. 
Exp. Stat. (July, 1890). Owing to the absence of worms in 1894 I had no opportu- 
nity of witnessing this mode of poisoning. 
1 1 did not see the Eoach machine, and while at Vicksburg, Miss.. 1 ascertained 
that the Koach Manufacturing Company had gone out of business. Professor Atkin- 
son, in the bulletin above referred to, records some favorable experience with this 
machine, made by planters in Alabama. 
§ A fourth machine of the same type is the Strawson Seeder and Fertilizer (U. S. 
patent, Xo. 411692, September 24, 1889, and previously patented in England). I am 
not aware that it has been used anywhere in the cotton States. 
