Norwich bulletin., 1916-12-25
pondence

q
 A LTHOUGH it may seem ridicu.
 NA lous to spend thousands idol AA lars annually to prevent one S S little moth egg that could pass through the eye of a cambric needle from entering the country, the machin- cry of the Departments of Agriculture State, Treasury and Post afflce are CO., operating to keep out thI little pest the pink cotton boll-worm.
 The same agencies are united; to ex- clude by quarantine diseased potatoes trees. shrubs and plants, andain so do- ing are accomplishing far more than one would think toward holding down the cost of living
 The general starr which conducts the defense against plant disease is known as the federal horticultural board and is composed of five high off, cials of appropriate bureaus of the De- partment of Agriculture.
 All along the fertile valley CT th Nile, where the luxuriant Egyptian cot ( ton grows, planters are more worried over the ruinous work of the pink boll- worm in their cotton fields than they
 
 European war.
 In the consternation caused by the loss of a fifth of their crop they have thrown up thetbarriers and are excIud- ing all foreign cotton-an unnecessary measure against the pest, with it's life cycle of destruction so firmly in posses sion of their fields; but directed against any further insect invaders.
 The pink boll-worm was. taken to Egypt from India, where it's wretched family billions are still leaving their 
 The tiny egg is deposited by the mother moth upon the growing plant leaf, which becomes the food of the larvae, emerging in ten. days from the egg. Thence it eats it's way into the heart of the cotton boil, where in this destructive stage it spends about twen ty days, until full grown, when it is nearly half an inch long.
 It has been, feeding upon the cotton seeds, and when about to transform into the pupa and become a moth again 1t occupies the hull, from which it has devoured the kernel The worms pink ish color and~its place of living have given it the name pink boll-worm." r -Y
 In about two weeks more the moth emerges, a fragile insect about three quarters of an inch in expanse, now a grayish brown color with darker splotches. In three or four days it deposits it's eggs and lives ten days or more; doing harm all it's life and Ieav- ing behind 1t a multiplied evil sue cession.
 While the annual yield of American Sea Island cotton, the best in the world, is by no means enough to make all the spool cotton, automobile tires and other textiles requiring a grade better than that of ordinary upland cotton, it is somewhat surprising to learn that 300,- 900 bales of Egyptian cotton contam- mated by the pink bolI-worm are i'm ported with impunity to the United States.
 This was made possible by a sys- tenn of Immigration originated by the board and worked out on a commercial scale by its Experts, by which every bale Is disinfected before distribution.
 The cotton=-a couple of hundred bales at tirne-is placed in great horizontal cylinder of heavy structural steel, dramatically sealed and then the air Is pumped out until there is almost vacuum within. Hydrocyanic acid gas Is then admitted and although the bales are compressed before shipment until they are almost as hard as blocks