The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1911-05-17
ONE SMALL BUGS COST
MEXICAN BOIL WEEVIL EATS
$50, OOO, 900 WORTH EVERY
YEAR IN THE SOUTH.
RELENTLESS FIGHT ON PEST

ALILlVH LLOO RUIIt WV ~
Since 1894 the Boil Weevil Ha.
Caused the Cotton States Loss OF
1855. 100000. 1t Never AbandOns
Its Ground, and Science So Fan
Has Been Helpless to Check 1t.
The financial losses which the cot
ton states of the south suffer every
year through the ravages Of the boil
weeyil are numerous. Every sum
mer the weevu destroys millions OF
dollars worth of the long silky fiber
that clothes a large percentage OF
the earth's population. In 1910
nearly $685. 900 bales of cotton, worth
at least $30,O00,000, were totally de-
stroyed For several years a loss of
over 100000 bales annually has been
felt by the south. Since 1894, when
attention was first called to the Wee
vii, the losses this bug has inflicted
on the south reach the enormous
total of $155, 100000
Nothing has been able to stop the
steady, relentless advance Of the boil
weevil across the cotton belt of the
United States. Within II years this
winged pestilence of the cotton fields
has come up out of Mexico and
spread slowly but surely across the
states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississip-
pi, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Last
year the advance guards of the Wee
vii were found along the eastern
boundaries of Mississippi and in
few instances in the western counties
of Alabama. This year Georgia is
alarmed for fear that at last it's plan
tatiOn fields are to be invaded by
the dread of the planter.
Relentless Fight on Pest
The fight that has been waged
against the boil weevil has never
ceased from the year of it's first ap-
pearance on American soil until the
present. Every weapon that could
possibly be brought to bear has been
used by state, private and national
enemies of the weeyl. Years ago the
United States department of agricult-
ure established a station at Victoria,
Tex, to study the habits and life
history of these evil bugs. Scientists
worked in the fields and among the
infected districts summer after sum-
mer for many seasons in the hope
OF finding some how and some way
Joint in the harness Of the invader.
weakness that might be success
fully attacked. Congress has apDro-
priated large sums to wage war upon
established laboratories and hired
the best men possible to spend
months in working out a plan that
would in the end destroy all traces
OF the Mexican importation, but so
tar nothing has been found by either
national or state investigators that
gives any hope of wipng out the
pest
County by county, mile by mile
the boil weeVils have made their way
northWard until now they have
reached in places the limit of the cot
ton growing soils Of North America.
Inc national experiment station has
long since been moved to Dallas in
order to be nearer the center of the
Doll WeeYiIs activities If the wee
OA4 'iAA uCS " ilIONt uOIJuWdGQ an
other move will be necessary.
Two boil weevils emerging from
the haf-dried stalks of a last years
cotton plant on June 20 of any year
Wll bring into the world about 12.-
10000 little weevils before the
fourth day of November of the same,
season. This is said by the agricult-
ufal departments experts to be a
very conservative estimate. Possibly
some OF the weeyils that emerge
from the ground about the first of
March and linger among the cotton
squares and bolls until the middle
OF November will far surpass that
number. Against the terrible power
'ot reproduction that the weeyil has
the farmer can fight only with such
crude weapons as stalk burning in
The fall, changing his fields and his
time OF planting, chain cultivators.
topping cotton plants and picking off
the Weevil by hand. Poisons have
proven too expensive, too hard to ap-
ply and altogether unsatisfactory.
Weevil an Importation.
The Doll weevil, like the English
sparrow and the Hessian fly is an
importation. Many of the old plant
ers around Brownsville, Texas, are
certain that it came across the Rio
'Grande in 1892. They claim to have