The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-11-08

! failed to stop them. They passed the
wide BRACES and sped northward until
| at the present time they are lined along
! the banks of the Red river on the north
ern boundary of the state.
Boil weevil news has become a factor
! in the stock market which the bears al
ways try TO suppress. There are men on
the Cotton Exchange who are basing pre-
dictions years ahead on the slow spread
of the dreaded warrior in gray
Many attempts have been made to per-
! feet a machine that will assist in de-
stroylng the weevi The division Of
entomology CT the agricultural depart
ment has carefully investigated the mer-
! its Of representatives of ali classe of
( these, beginning in 1895, with a square
collecting machine at Beeville that had
attracted considerable 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 Ill
/ timately successful The difficulty and
/ expense Of working a machine when most
/ needed, as in very wet weather, VIII prob
ably always prevent them from coming
into use. II it were not possible to raise
cotton proftably without the use of
machine the situation would be mater
tally changed.
But since it is possible to produce the
staple without the use of any other means
IMAM those that enter into cotton culture
/ everywhere, there seems no hope for
these machines. If perfected at all, they
will undoubtedly meet the same fate as
the many complicated devices for Destroy
ing or poisoning the cotton leaf worm
with which planters and entomologists
were especially concerned about twenty
I years ago, the wrecks Of which may now
be found upon any Of the older planta-
/ tons in Texas.
As q matter of fact the boil weevils can
stand almost any sort of temperature or
environment. They have been corked in
bottles and frozen in the middle of cakes
OF ice. After thirty hours CT such cap
tivity upon thawing out they have come
to life.
The state of Texas has appropriated
$4,000 as a war fund against the insect,
but the prospects for its determination
are extremely remote.
Colonel George II. Walton, statistical
expert of the agricultural department Of
Texas. says of the boil weevil
within nine years the boil weevil
has caused actual losses to the Texas
cotton planters aggregaung $40 100000. 1
estimate that the pest will cause a loss
this yeor OF more than 10000 bales Of
cotton, with cash value of more than
S23. 100000.
During the preceding years following
the weevirs first appearance in Texas
the losses amounted TO many thousands
of bales, but no strict record was kept
of them, owing to the fact that the peo-
pie did not realize the seriousness of the
situation. l do not believe that any prac-
teal or successful remedy will ever be
found for Graduating the weevil.
Il believe that they win continue to
spread until they have covered every
part OF the cotton growing region of the
South. IN five years more the weevl at
its present rate of progress win have
covered Arkansas, louisiana and Missis
sippi, and within seven years it will have
spread to the Atlantic seaborad.
THE cotton industry is permanently
crippled. if not altogether doomed.
Last year the weevil had reached
Central Texas. the heart of the black land
belt and this year there is not a cot
ton growing locality in the state, with the
exception of a strip along the Red river
on the northern border and in the Pan
Handle country, that has not suffered
from its terrible blighting effects. An
other season will doubtless see it in Ar
kansas and Louisiana.
Professor L. Q. Howard, chief ento-
mologist of the department agriculture
at Washington says:
The cotton boil weevil is small gray
object about five-sixteenths of an inch
in length, with long, slender snout,
and with this snout it punctures the flow
ers, squares and young bolls of the cot
ton plant, at first for feeding purposes /
and later to deposit eggs.
The eggs hatch into white. footless
grubs which feed upon the interior of the
boil. destroying the forming cotton
There are several generations each year
and the insects breed uninterruptedly up
to nearly the time of the first frost
In the course of our Investigation al
most every possible remedy has been
tried and department experts have been
sent to the entral American states and
Cuba to try to find out the natural enc
mics of the weevil which could be intro
duced to good advantage into Texas. The
results proved negative"