The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1909-02-02
POISON THE BOIL WEEVlL
Capt B. w. Marston Talks at Vicks-
burg to Mississippi Cotton Growers.

Herald, III the Flazz1 Hotel dining
room Capt. B. W. Marston delivered his
address on how to poison the boil weevil
and prevent its ravages. The audience
was small on account Of the bad wealth
err. A number Of the largest Vicksburg
planters were in the audience, also Alex
Y Scott Of Rosedale. whose father,
Hon. Charles Scott. is the largest cotton
planter in the State Those who attend
ed were deeply interested i'll the address,
There is no doubt Captain Marston has
made thorough study of the boil
weevil for the past FIVE years and is per
haps the leading expert of Louisiana.
outside the chronological professors,
with whom he locks horns.
Captain Marston opened his address
by thanking those who were present for
the compliment shown him by their
presence, and he then plunged into his
subject by referring to the Crop Pest
Commission, and his determination to
go into Texas, ION the firing line and
see what the weevil was He related his
various experiences there and that when
he returned and told the people of
Shreveport that the weevil could be con-
'trolled, he was laughed out of court.
He characterized the successful invasion
of the weevil as the crime of the age.
and all unnecessary" He said he had
been assured that he would be put in
charge of the fight, and that he wanted
to organize the people of Louisiana
from the Arkansas line to the Gulf
along the Texas border and the Sabine
river. and If it had been done the weevil
would never have reached Red river
At the great convention which was held
in Shreveport in July 1905, DR.. Knapp
and his friends appeared on the scene,
and with the encouragement of possibly
a million dollar appropriation from Con-
gress he had been turned down by his
own friends In 1906 he filed letter
with Mr. W. E. Glassell of Shreveport
"for future reference" as history.
The substance of the letter is a warn
ing against the boil weevil and the urg
ing the use of poison In this letter he
detailed his experience with the boil
weevil at Keachie From the start he
had to fight the skeptics and the experts
who had ridiculed the use of poison.
AS he predicted then, the weevil has
despoiled our fair country i'll Louisiana,
our beautiful homes, the accumulation
of years of honest toll. and all of this
could have been stopped between the
Sabine and Red rivers with poison, He
said: Il proclaim it now, in the teeth
of Secretary Wilson Of the United
State Agricultural Department, and in
the teeth of the Crop Pest Commission
of Louisiana. that they can be stopped
right where they are. OF course it will
take the united action of all the people,
acting almost like one man. But not
more united than the potato growers of
the State of Michigan, because there
every man who plants potato prepares
in advance and does poison the potato
bug. The boil weevil is as easily con-
trolled as the potato bug, but it must
be taken in time The daddies and man,
mics, surviving the winter, must be uni
versalfy poisoned before they get in
their infection Like the yellow fever,
if the first cases are discovered it can
not spread, and this was only learned
after centuries of war and misery and
death, but let it spreak for instance in
every house in this city, all the doctors
in the world could not stop it. possibly,
before frost. No man yet has devised
a plan to cntrol the boil weevil after it
has gotten in its infective work in large,
heavily fruited cotton( but it is picnic
to kill all the early winter weevils. But
the entomologists say they continue to
emerge from their winter quarters until
late in June Great Lord. what mon
strosity! What fatal error!"
He declared recently. as he did FIVE
yNdiS d6O, IblNaC uNSSA "oo "
bernating' weevil After the last snow
he met in a few days Mr.. Garrett, who
was in charge of the Keachie "hiberna-
ton in the winter of 1905 and 1906
and he told me that the weevils there
were out in large numbers all over those
cages on every warm day during that
winter. How is that for Information? l
have weevils now as live as crickets and
am finding them every day. BY the time
the cotton is big enough to square and
blossom. believe 90 per cent if not 100
per cent of the winter weevils are in the
cotton fields, because they prefer cotton
as food. and if heroically poisoned
then. they will be practically destroyed
AMI controlled, just as the potato bug
has been practically destroyed and con-
trolled
He predicted that in FIVE years the
people will care nothing more for the
weevil than the Michigan farmers do
for the potato bug.
D,.r;rrx bic addrecc Canfair Marstnn