Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-12-24

NsglsS -,AlI, 'sss,s. 20 IN ~ ~
ly forward at the rate OF seventy tive
miles a year. All the science and Wis
dem CT the national department OF agri-
culture has been OF no avail to stop IL.
What will the end be? AS yet tine
dreaded curculio is confined TO Texas,
where it cost the state 100000, 900 last
year. There will still remain the wide
and splendid cotton plantations OF Mis-
| sissippi, Alabama, Georgia and the
Carolinas for its invasion
The eurculio or cotton boil weeyil
made its first appearance in the cotton
fields of Texas in 1894.
Somewhere, away down in the trop-
ical regions of Mexico it crept into
light years ago. 1t preened its wings,
rubbed its STUDY legs, and set about
finding its nate. This accomplished,
the family began 10 look for some place
to go to housekeeping.
Here were the Adam and Eve of all
the billions of boil weeyils which have
since devastated Texas. They slowly
spread from Mexico to the Rio Grande,
halted for time and then crossed in
TO Texas This was in Bee county.
near Brownsville.
Reports came up to Austin Of the
ravages of queer gray bug with a
long nose. The agricultural depart
ment at Washington proposed to the
Texas legislature to stop growing cot
ton along the river for two years and
starye the assassin out The legisla-
ture refused
Each year since then the firing line
OF the curculio has slowly extended
seventy miles to the northward and
twenty-five miles to the eastward
Each female in the great gray army
lays from three hundred to seven hun
dred eggs year in as many different
cotton bolls.
These mature in a month and the
new females come forth armed with
their forbears' powers of destruction.
The broad canons of the Colorado riv-
err failed to stop them They passed
the wide BraZos and sped northward
until at the present time they are lined
along the banks of the Red river on the
northern boundary of the state.
Boil weevil news has become a fac
tor in the stock market which the bears
always try to suppress. There are men
on the cotton exchange who are basingI
predictions years ahead on the slow
spread of the dreaded warrior in gray.
Many attempts have been made TO
perfect a machine that will assist in
destroying the weevil The division
~
partment has carefully investigated the
merits of representatives of all classes
OF these. beginning in 1895 with al
square collecting machine at Beeville
that had attracted considerable local
attention. Up to the present time,
however, none of these devices has
been found to be practicable or to offer
any definite hope of being ultimately
successful. The difficulty and expense
OF working machine when most need
ed. as in very wet weather, will prob
ably always prevent them from coming
into use. If it were not possible to
raise cotton prohtably without the use
of a machine. the situation would be
materially changed.
But since II Is possible to produce
the staple without the use of any other
means than those that enter into cot.
ton culture everywhere, there seems
no hope for these machines. If per-
fected at all, they will undoubtedly
meet the same fate as the many com.
plicated devices for destroying or pois.
oning the cottonleaf worm with which
planters ana entomologists were espe
cially concerned about twenty years
ago. the wrecks of which may now bel
found upon any of the older plantations
in Texas.
AS matter of fact the Loll weevils
can stand almost any sort of tempera-
ture or environment They have BEEN
corked In bottles and frozen in the,
middle of cakes of ice After thirty
hours of such captivity upon thawing
out they have come TO life.
The state of Texas has appropriated
$4,000 as war fund against the in