The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-08-01
BY DIR. W. E. HINDs.


 cotton boil weevll will have entered
 Alabama is as certain as it is that cot ton will continue to be produced in
 this and adjoining states before that
 time. The certainty that the cotton
 planters of Alabama will soon have to contend with an enemy more difficult
 to fight and more destructive to the crop than anything which they have
 ever been forced to face should be
 matter of deep and immediate interest to every citizen of the state regard
 less of his occupation If we shall
 meet this grave problem in manner to result in a minimum of loss to all branches of commercial and profess
 sional as we'll as of agricultural life, 1t is essential that we improve to the utmost the few years which may inter-
 vene in direct and united preparation for the great changes in agricultural practice and In economic conditions generally which the presence of this pest has invariably caused wherever 1t
 has gone We may well be willing to profit by the experience for which our sister states of Texas. Louisiana and Mississippi, particularly have paid so large a price. We should by all means begin immediately to put Into active operation some of the fundamental im- provements In agricultural practice which have been worked out during the past few years as direct result of the fight against the weevil. If
 these practices are advisable ana profitable anywhere with the boil | weevil present. they may be made even more so here and now before the weexil arrives. The great opportuni- | ty for gaining experience and deter mining the immediate applicability of any of these practices to our local con ditions Is evidently the period before | .t,t 4ln not | have to suffer the losses which 1t Is very certain to inflict wherever it
 exists. | The eastward spread of the weevil promises to be as certain and as rapid
 as was It's northward spread through Texas and Oklahoma until ultimately
 1t shall infest cotton wherever grown
 commercially in the southeastern states Its spread may be accom- plishej in two general ways.
 In the first place the weevil will continue to spread by its own unaided | flight which man is powerless to pre- vent. The entire area embraced with | in a line passing through the outer most points thus reached each year must be considered as constituting the area of general infestation" although the weeviI may not occur at many of 1 the places included within, but near | the outermost edge of this area. The | line referred to is "the line of general I infestation" and this is what we l reckon with in the annual spread Of the boil weevil. It may be shown that this line has been steadily advanced
 through an average distance of about fifty miles each year. We may expect this rate to be maintained as the weevil continues eastward to the Alt lantfc coast. From this basis we may
 easily and quite certainly determine that in two seasons more, that is by November, 1910. we may expect the | line of general ipfestation to reach the Mississippi Alabama boundary. II IS | quite likely that some of the western | tier of counties in this state may then l become partially infested. It will re- l quire only about three years more for l the weevil to spread over the entire
 state and to reach Western Georgia. l Therefore we may consider 1t prac- | tically certain that throughout the 1 western third of Alabama by the sum IfmeF0 of 19t1s through the central third by 1912. and through the eastern third by 1813 and in each case constantly after those dates, every cotton planter
 will have to reckon with the presence
 of the boil weevil and some degree or
 injury by 1t.
 In the second place, we must consider
 that the boil weevil is liable to be
 brought into the state at any time ahead of the general infestation by the
 various methods of transportation,
 principally by railroads. with persons, household goods cotton and It's pro ducts, or with any other articles which may contain or shelter them. This danger naturally increases as the line | of infestation approaches more close | ly. In numerous instances fin Texas, l Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere 1t | has been clearly established that the
 weevil has been carried long distances | In shipments of cotton seed from in-
 Tested areas although fortunately 1t | has not yet happened in the direction | of uninfested territory. Infested cot | ton produced in the edge of the infest- | ed area has been hauled considerable distances beyond for winning and plant | CTS bringing their cotton from other directions have carried away weeVil-
 infested seed with them. Tenants and | cotton pickers moving from Infested to uninfested territory are very liable | to carry weevils with them and thus | establish new centers of infestation. l These are among the considerations | which have made necessary the estab- | lishment and strict enforcement or
 quarantine measures to guard against the accidental introduction of the | weevil
 Recognition of The WeeviI.
 It is of extreme importance that
 we learn of the presence of the weeVil | anywhere in the state as quickly as i possible after it's arrival. For infor-
 nation on this point we must neces-
 sarily depend principally upon the re- ports of cotton planters and others | directly interested in this subject As
 A rule we cannot depend for this in- formation upon newspaper reports,
 even when these are vouched for by
 some planter who "came from the boil
 weeyil country" With the boil weevil, as with most other insects. the ord nary casual observer fails to notice | any but the most obvious characters
 on account of their small size. There
 fore the characters noted are more | than likely to be only those which are | common to a group including hundreds
 of closely related species rather than l those distinctive of single species. By careful attention to the following | brief description we believe that the | reader of average intelligence may be l able to distinguish the boil weevil
 from the numerous other insects oc- | curing on cotton. which are often mis-
 taken for it and to recognize it's at l tack on the plant with a reasonable
 degree of certainty, In any case of
 doubt specimens should be sent i'm
 mediately in a strong, tight, tin or
 wooden box, with letter of explana | tion to the Entomologist Alabama
 Experiment Station, Auburn, Ala. He