The Green Forest tribune., 1914-12-25

one or the most 1nduStr1OuS, persistent and prolific little animals of which we have any record.
 State Entomologist E. Lee Worsham of the Georgia department points out that each female will lay approximate ly three hundred eggs which come to maturity within fifteen to twenty-five days, according to the season, and there are about four generations each year so that each female may give rise to some 12,5O0,00O progeny. One female, therefore, in a cotton field at the beginning of the season, could come pretty near destroying the crop in that field before picking time.
 The female deposits her eggs in- side the square or boil, preferably the former, and for this reason they are not often seen by the farmer. During the early season the weevil does not attack the mature bolls, but when food is scarce in late season, bolls are bad ly infected, and many larvae or imma- ture weevils are found inside of them. The egg hatches within few days into the larva or worm stage, follow ing which the adult weevil develops inside the square or boil and gnaws its way out. In the early part of the season this process requires about twenty-five days, but later on fifteen to seventeen days, are sufficient. As a rule the adult weevils do not live very long, but the United States bu- reau of entomology reports few spec imens that lived little more than eleven months
 The weevil is known to feed on 8 few other plants besides cotton, one in particular being a species of Thur beria found growing wild in Arizona, and which is perhaps more like the cotton plant than any other.
 The young weevils are very soft and oza Mgnts yellow color They remain sss,s4the pupal shell fer about two days,
 i'd when the body is sufficiently hard
 led they go out in search of food.
 he adult is brownish beetle with .ssnout or slightly curved beak. The smallest ones are about one-tenth of an inch long, while the largest ones are quarter of an incn long, the size sdepending largely on the food sup sply.
 The weevil spends the winter in the adult stage. At the approach of cold weather the adults desert the cotton plants and go into hibernation in seed houses, in wooded areas, under trash, weeds, grass, along terraces, fences and roads, and particularly in Spanish moss wherever it grows. As soon as the temperature gets as low as 56 de grees they begin to hunt cover Dur ing the winter months they are killed from various causes, principally the se- were cold weather. A temperature of 12 degrees Fahrenheit is fatal to them. and rarely more than seven per cent of them emerge alive under the most favorable conditions. Sometimes it is nearer one per cent.
 In the spring. those weevils which have escaped the cold weather emerge and begin to hunt cotton. Some of them come out as early as February. Others do not gdt out until along about the first of July It takes tempera- ture around six}ty-five to seventy-five degrees to bring them out in large numbers. When the old weevils come out of their winter quarters they go straight to the cotton plant. If there are no squares bn 1t, they attack the plant itself, punt tturing the stem, and unless the plant is very hardy one 1t is likely to be killed. The weevil feeds on the tender growing shoots and new leaves until the first squares appear. When a young square is punctured by a weevil it flares open and soon falls tcI the ground; for this reason there is hn absence of bloom where weevils are abundant.
 The boil weevit travels by means of its wings and can( easily fly twenty-five .to fifty miles at la single flight. The
 V reason for travelling is search for
 S'When food is scarce it will travel
 eater distance. In 1912 the weevil advanced through Alabama a distance of about one hundred miles and camped for the winter within fifty miles of the Georgia line. Under these conditions it wAs naturally expect ed that it woulH get into Georgia in 1914.
 There is no greater authority in America on the b9ll weevil than w. D. Hunter, agent of the United States bureau of entomology in charge of crop insect investigation in the South. MT. Hunter began studying the boil weevil in 1902 and has perhaps a more intimate kntwledge of this and other, cotton inseEts than any other man in the world Through his ener- getic and masterftul direction of the investigation, the cultural system of cotton production devised to meet the attack of the boil lweevil has been de- veloped and put into application in