Letter from C. R. Byrnes, Natchez, Miss., to G. H. Alford: "We are just closing our second year of serious disaster from this little pest. We show a decided improvement in 1910 over the year of 1909. Our acreage is about one-half of what it was last year and we will make about the same crop as last year. In my individual case, I made last year seventeen bales on 150 acres; this year I will make the same crop on eighty acres. You are aware that I do not live on my own farm and have only negro tenants. I have directed the management by not exceeding two visits to the farm each week during the working season and have followed the government's directions as well as I could, situated as I am. If I had lived on my farm far better results could have been obtained. I have now more corn than I will require for next year's crop and a good start of hogs and cattle. My farm has been more than self-sustaining this year and I believe I will have a splendid return next year, as I have so little to buy. [Illustration: A tractor turning four furrows] My success is due to the aid of Government instructions. To illustrate: One of my negro tenants, when I told him in the month of May that he must send his entire family into his cotton patch and pick every punctured square from the cotton stalks and burn them and also kill the weevils to be found, objected; said he did not believe in it. I replied that the instructions were not original with me, that they were from the United States Government, after a fifteen years' study of the boll weevil, and if he thought he knew more about it than the Government I would try to place him in the employ of the Government and get one of their men to come and work his crop under his, the tenant's, direction. This remark had the desired effect. He got the weevils and will make three bales of cotton on eight acres, while he made only one and one-half bales on sixteen acres last year. Being a member of our Board of Supervisors, I insisted that our President, manager of the convict farm, plant five acres in cotton and work it under Government's instructions. He was opposed to planting any cotton. I insisted on it, stating that I was not after the money it would bring, but wanted it as an experiment and aid to our farmers, knowing that the labor was there under absolute control, and that there would be no reason why it could not be properly farmed. The five acres were planted and properly worked--two heavy bales have been ginned and another light bale will be picked. Now this was on thin upland, fertilized and worked as you would have directed. Splendid results, is it not?