The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1904-06-23
CURE FOR THE
BOIL WEEVII,
IS THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN
DISCOVERED.
BY CAPTAIN hARSTON.
experiments In Texas Make Him Ger
tain that Paris Green Will Exter-
inmate the Dangerous and Dreaded
Little Pest.

0SPe0Au ~. w. MdrStOn, member or
The Louisiana Boil Weevil Commission
who is In Lockhart, Tex, making ex-
per1ments on how to exterminate the
pest, has written a communication to
w. f. Taylor, of Shreveport, in which
ae says he believes he has discovered
the secret of the problem, and that
paris green will kill the weevil. Cap
tain Marston writes: "The boil wee
vi is an easier proposition than the
cotton caterpillar and the boil worm.
have not failed in a single instance
N Killing every one I have experiment.
ed upon, and have killed them whole
sale. 1t was first at Houston, in the
Cotton Exchange, where they had $50
IN one bottle gathered near this place,
Lockhart. They gave me about doz-
en- IN bottle. | Immediately went
down to one Of the oil mills and got
Few volunteer cotton stalks and put
hose weevils into them in my room
at the hotel. They being hungry from
siose confinement for several days, be-
gan feeding on these stalks. / could
zee them under a microscope | had.
running their little nippers on the end
Of their bills over the cotton leaves
and seemed to eat the fussy little hair
(velvet) on the cotton and little
specks like animalculae, or the eggs Of
The cotton lice, If not the lice them
selves, though I saw them go around
large lice. l then sprinkled a little
water on the leaves, and they went
for it like house flies. l dipped the
Tip end Of my finger in the water and
put . weevil (hungay out Of the bot
sle,) on it, and it sucked it dry. This
was the most interesting hour Of my
whole life, and 100000 would not
have compensated me for this informa-
lion. | had come to Texas, supposing
from all the information I could get
that the weevil only fed by punctua-
alton. This is not true. They feed
like house flies, and punctuate also as
you will see later on. then sprinkled
Ihe merest minimum amount Of paris
green over those green leaves, so thin
that | could not see it with my naked
syes, or through nay spectacles. But
through a strong microscope I could
see it. This killed every weevil l had,
and | thought it was pretty fair test
But to be sure | determined to come
down home and work on the cotton in
the field, where there. are now millions
OF weevils just out Of their hibernat-
ing quarters. In the open field I dust
ed some stalks and left them unpro-
tected, and then busted some stalks
and put mosquito netting over them to
keep the weevils from escaping. In
about six hours we found weevils un-
der the unprotected stalks (from I'M
der one stalk, and also few live
ones. The others had disappeared, but
[ found one dead one several feet
away from the stalk. So I argue that
when they eat the poison they crawl
or fly away. | forgot to say we gath
cred many weevils out of the field and
put them on those selected stalks.
The stalks we tied the mosquiting net
ting over had some weevils dead and
some alive under the netting. We
gathered all the stalks we had poison
ed weevils and all, dead and alive
put them in box and brought them
in, and covered them up SO they
could not escape. The next morning
they were all dead!
II did the same thing the follow
ing day. The next day / got an invi-
tation to go down to Lagrange and
make some experiments. I did it with
the same results, in company with the
bankers, merchants and many citi-
zens. 1t goes without saying these
people are much enthused, and are
now, I am informed, ordering paris
green by the wholesale. We are now
past the experimental stage. How
this idea will reach the new crop of
weevils is another proposition.
It is now fact that on the young
cotton and the volunteer cotton every
hibernated weevil in Texas is out
hunting food after his long fast, and
also hunting their mates! IF this
brood can be killed, there will be none
to come after them. But if this brood
are, allowed to lay and hatch, then
you will have rotation, say daily
crops, coming on just in ratio to the
number Of days the hibernated wee
wills lived and desposited their eggs,
which time is not definitely known. It
will be much harder to reach these
continually coming new crops than
now to reach one old crop and that
Sully's Demurrer.
y