10 PEELIMINAKY EEPOET ON ALFALFA WEEVIL. 
proximity to any railway ; it is, on the oth.er hand, among the habita- 
tions of the more humble class of people, such as have come from for- 
eign countries. The correct inference, therefore, would seem to be that 
it was introduced with nursery stock or in the household effects of 
immigrants. The pest had gained a foothold, doubtless, years earlier, 
but had increased from perhaps a single pair and was too few in num- 
bers to attract attention up to the time when it had become destruc- 
tive over several acres and when it had probably spread ni limited 
numbers far beyond. In the immediate vicinity of this seriously 
infested field, and indeed throughout the country about Salt Lake, 
alfaKa long ago escaped from cultivation and now grows as a weed 
generally on vacant lots (PL I, fig. 1) and other uncultivated areas 
like roadsides and railroad rights of way (PL I, fig. 2), so that it 
would now be impossible to determine, even approximately, the 
exact time and location of the original landing of 
the first individuals in Utah. As a matter of fact 
the insect might easily have been brought into 
the country again and again and have perished 
because the locality in which it ended its voyage 
was destitute of growing alfalfa. 
SPREAD OF THE PEST. 
From the single infested alfalfa field near Salt 
Lake, the only one known up to the year 1904, 
FIG. i.-The alfalfa weevil ^hc pest evidently became somcwhat widely dif- 
(Phytonomus posticus): fuscd and by the following year was found sev- 
eral miles distant to the southeast. It was not, 
however, until 1907 that it was brought to the 
attention of the L^tah Experiment Station and not until 1908 that 
attention was called to the matter in print by Prof. E. G. Titus,^ 
entomologist of the Agricultural College and Experiment Station, 
although by the fall of 1907 it had spread over all of the alfalfa-grow- 
ing section lying immediately east of Salt Lake and Murray .^ By 
July 1, 1910, the infested area covered the greater part of Salt Lake 
and contiguous portions of adjoining counties, aggregating an area 
approximately 60 by 70 miles in extent.^ 
Up to September, 1911, the insect had extended its area of diffusion 
directly northward as far as Tremonton, east to Evanston, Almy, 
and Lyman, Wyo., and northeast to Cokeville, Wyo., Kandolph and 
Lake town, Utah, and Fish Haven, Idaho. 
1 Deseret Farmer, Salt Lake City, Utah, September 26 and October 3, 1908. 
2 Bui. 110, Utah Agr. Coll. Exp. Sta. The Alfalfa Leaf-AVee\-il, by E. G. Titus, Logan, Utah, September, 
1910. 
3Loc. cit., map 1. 
Adult. Much enlarged. 
(Author's illustration.) 
