The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-06-19
WEEV|LS ARE MORE NUMEROUS IN YEARS
 DECLARES CHENEY
Spends Weeks In Infected District Investigating Ravages of Destruct-
 i've Pests

Montgomery, June 1S--(Specal.) Capt. John C. Cheney. chief clerk in the office of commissioner of agrieul- ture. has returned from a weeks trip in the boil weevil district investigating the ravages of this destructive pest. The counties visited by Captain Cheney are Mobile, Washington, Choctaw, Els cambia, Baldwin, Conecuh and Butler, where he found the weevil in alarm ing numbers. This shows. according to mild that the weather conditions fa- vored the nursing of the wintered wee wills in his hibernating state. Under the Influence Of the mild winter and spring these sleeping destroyers come forth in good shape to do their work and they are doing 1t with more havoc and destruction than in years. Captain Cheney declares that 1t is nothing un- usual to pick from 25 to 15o of the wintered weevils from one acre of cot ton and that unless the farmers are energetic to pick and destroy them it is going to be practically impossible
 
 vaded district.
 Continuing Captain Cheney says "I find the wecvil is practically in all of the counties in west Alabama south os- Lamar and extends in the extremest southern portion as far as Geneva countq. l think, however, that no ex- tensive damage will be done iii Gov ington and Geneva counties, though on account of the great number of win tered waayila iS n oh of ,5ra destruction being wrought by them In the two counties. l do not like to sound a disconraging note nor to be regard ed as a prophet of evil, but it is a grave question that confronts our farmers in the western and extreme portion of the southern counties of the state and unless these farmers get to Work vigorously and energetically to resist this crop evil. it will be im- possible to make any considerable crop at all this year in this section; in fact, some of the farmers already are blow ing up their cotton and planting it in corn.
 Farmers Alive to Danger
 Tt is encouraging to note that the greater portion of the farmers in the section mentioned seem to be thor oughly alive to the danger against which they are up and they are meeting this danger effectively in searching for and destroying the win tered weevils. If they are successful in getting them, they will make a fair crop if they can run the gauntlet of the second appearance of the weevii. which is usually about the middle of August. It will be recalled We had an early frost last year which killed the foliage on the cotton stalk and from this we were hopeful at the time that the weevil would not be able to stand the long season of hiberna tion. This hole failed us on account of the mild weather under which the cotton com menced its second growth and it was late in the season before this growth was had. This gave the weevil a new lease of life and spared it for the ad- vent of the spring weather which was favorable toward proloneing his life. The abundant appearance of the pests now is due to the fact of being nurtured all the winter long by mild or warm weather which is essential to it's life and mis- sion.
 We are doing all that we can in the direction of investigation for the most effective and inexpensive means of combating this crop invader. Up to now nothing has been discovered which thoroughly meets the trouble. Prob ably no other subject Is bringing forth more earnest and larger efforts upon lines by the agricultural de- partment of the government and of the state
 'The boil weevil exists as an over towering evil, and so far all that has bee nascertained is largely upon sug- gestive lines. Some of the plans brought forward for fighting this pest appear to have decided merit and while I wish it understood that we are not Cffipia1lV ip1nrSfpp infallible preventive of the boil wee VII, yet we look with favor upon some of them. The remerdy of MT. G. M. Manor or Yazoo. Miss. appears to be as one thoroughly worthy of a trial and I would suggest to all farmers who are grappling with this trouble to try Mir Manor's plan. That plan in taching 10 the blow as soon as the cot ton is ready to work gunny sack of heavy cloth saturated with a mixture O flubricating oil and moth balls in the proportion of one gallon of oil to one pound of moth balls. The oil and moth balls first are boiled together when one pint of tar is added and into this mixture is poured five gallons of coal oil After thoroughly saturatfng the sacks with this mixture they are attache dto the singletree and as the blow progresses the sacks are dragged against the cotton plants, thereby re- moving these insects, as 1t Is claimed they cannot withstand the odor.
 My farewell word on the subject Is for the farmers to get immediately busy and stop at nothing short of cleaning their crop of these weevils by picking them or removing them either in the simple way of taking them bodily from the plant or in almost as simple a way of getting rid of them through MT Manors expedient which h a,ra axnlained and racnmm ended far