Crossville chronicle. [volume] (Crossville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1915-01-13


The Mexican boil weevil at work is
one of the most industrious, 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 12,500,O0O progeny. One
female, therefore, in 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 matches within a 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
rule the adult weevils do not live
very long, but the United States bu-
reau of entomology reports few spec
linens that lived a little more than
eleven months.
The weevil is known to feed on
few other plants besides cotton, one
in particular being species of Thur
IBERIA found growing wild in Arizona,
and which is perhaps more like the
cotton plant than any other.
The young weevils are very soft and
of light yellow color. They remain
in the pupal shell for about two days,
and when the body is sufficiently hard
eneJ they go out in search of food
The adult is a brownish beetle with
a snout or slightly curved beak. The
smallest ones are about one-tenth of
an inch long, while the largest ones
are a quarter of an incn long, the size
depending largely on the food sup
ply.
The weevil spends the winter in the
adult stage. At the approach of cold
weather the adults desert the cotton
plants and go into Information 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 Sc de-
grees they begin to hunt cover. Dur
ing the winter months they are killed
from various causes, principally the Sc
we're cold weather. A temperature of
IL 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 get out until along about |
the first of July.
There is no greater authority in
America on the boil weevil than w. D.
Hunter, agent of the United States
bureau of entomology in charge of |
crop insect investigation in the South.
Mr.. Hunter began studying the boil
weevil in 1902 and has perhaps a
more intimate knowledge of this and
other cotton insects than any other
man in the world. Through his ener
getic and masterful direction of the
investigation, the cultural system of
cotton production devised to meet the
attack of the boil weevil has been de-
yeloped and put into application in
many sections, and this is now the
basis of all farm demonstration work
in this direction.
Mr. Hunter has surrounded himself
for the past ten years with an ade-
ouate force of trained specialists who
have been watching every phase of the
problem. In addition to the boll-weevi,
problem, Mr.. Hunter is in charge of all
insect Investigations affecting cot
ton. sugar cane, tobacco and rice.
But as if these were not enough to
occupy the attention of this exceeding
" active man, he also directs the in
vestisation of insects affecting the