The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-31

scientists, it seems that we must sit still and see
the boil weevil extend it's range of operations all
over the South and rob our people of from $780,
$1,000 to $500, 10000 annually. At any rate,
this is the gloomy prediction of the Agricultural
Department authorities at Washington, they
seeming to have but little confidence in the recent
discovery as to Paris green applications. A
Washington press dispatch gives an interesting
outline of the Forthcoming boil weevil bulletin by
Entomologist W.. d. Hunter, from which we
make the following extract:
"By living within the fruit of the plapt, the
weevil is well protected from any poisons that
might be applied; it occupies but fourteen days
for development from egg to adult, and the
progeny of a single pair in a season may reach
134,00O,000 individuals; it adapts itself to eli
matte conditions, and it is remarkably free from
parasites and diseases, all combining to make
efforts at control difficult. The report estimates
that the presence of the weevil practically dou-
bles the area of land required to produce a bale
of cotton and that the weevil caused the Texas
planters a loss of about SIS, 600, 900 in 1908, as
Stunning $500, O00, 900 as the value of the normal
cotton crop of the country. Mr.. Hunter says the
probable ultimate damage when the pest has be-
come spread over the entire belt would approx
mate $3.50, 900, 900 annually provided nothing were
done to check it. Planters, however, are adopting
changes in methods that tend to avoid so much
damage. The report predicts that the weevil
eventually will be distributed all over the cotton
belt, advancing into new territory at the rate of
approximately five hundred miles a decade, and it
probably always viii be as destructive in a series
of years as it has been in Texas since 1894. The
report suggests that the probability of its being
carried to West Africa or elsewhere abroad is not
at all remote"
This report ought to awaken the people of every
part df the South to the far-reaching Importance
of this boil weevil investigation. Too many peo-
pie outside of Texas have regarded it as the pecu-
liar problem of the Lone Star State, and have
read with fatal indifference of the ravages of the
pest in that Commonwealth. But it is a matter
vitality affecting every part of the Cotton Belt,
and a matter which should be grappled with in
the speediest and most practical manner posi-
bic. Farmers clubs, farmers papers, and farm
ers as individuals ought to demand that State
and National Governments cooperate in the full
est measure and use their powers to the fullest
extent in investigating this problem and applying
whatever remedial measures it is found best to
adopt. IF greater precautions as to shipment OF
seed, etc., are necessary, let these be enforced by
the most s~tringest legal regulations. If a quaran-
tin along the Louisia-ia and Arkansas lines can
be established by disseminating the cultivation of
cotton in this area, let the National Government
make this decree and reimburse the farmers
there for whatever loss they must sustain in
changing to other crops.
Let the farmers everywhere awake to the i'm
~portance of this matter and see that no stone is
left unturned in the effort to project the South's
great cotton growing industry.
has been made of the discovery OF the insect en-
- III 81 - G,,ofopoo1o oho11t which