The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1916-04-19

Professor Brandt LaBoon, OF AID
beville. Ala. contributes an article
IN the Farm and immigration, pub
lisbed in Montgomery Ala, on the
boil weevfl. and believing that read
ers of The News will ind 1t inter
esting and instructive We Reproduce
it for their benefit. Professor La
Boon says
A great deal is being said and H.
tie is being done al TINS time about
the boil weevn.
And we'll may We say something
and do much, for tbs insect is truly
one of the great pests, Il nos the
greatest, in our sortaiand. Truly
the cotton farmer has nayar had any
thing to combat with that is so raw
aging to the cotton plant,
Started on Wild Cotton.
Before going into this question
further let us first review the history
of the Mexican boil weevil in the
United States. We call it the MeXi-
can boil weeviI because it came into
this country from Mexico, 1t is
native of Central America, and has
lived there unnoticed on the wild
cotton. Wild cotton also grows in
Mexico. and after the invention OF
the cotton gin attention was turned
to the growing of cultivated cotton,
and as soon as this was done the Wee
wills found the cultivated cotton more
tender than the wild cotton and
soon adapted themselves to these
cultivated plants.
The weeyiI spread northward in
Mexico, and in 1892 reached the Rio
Grande river and crossed into the
United States at Brownsville, Texas.
Texas being a great cotton state the
weevil spread rapidly toward the
north and east. By 1895 it had
reached as far north as San Antonio,
and has continued to spread until at
the present time it has covered prac-
tically all of the states of Texas,
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mis-
sissippi. the greater part of Alabama
and over forty counties in Georgia.
Where will it stop? Only one an
swer: When it has reached the foot
of the Blue Ridge mountains on the
north and the tobacco belt in North
Carolina on the east. 1t is as surely
to cover the entire cotton belt Of the
South as it has covered the above
mentioned states. Alabama fought
harder against the weeyil than prob
ably any other state had done; Geor-
gia mas begun the hardest fight OF
any state as yet; South Carolina win
inaugurate d harder fight than Geor-
gia; and North Carolina Will fight
harder than any other state. But
watch, and if you live long enough
you will see the boil weevil cover
the entire cotton belt This is not
fantasy, because all the states have
fought against it. and the spread has
not been retarded. All that the vari-
Gus states have done has been of lit
tie avail. 1t has Travelled at the rate
of about so miles a year, while in
1909 it travelled over 100 miles
across the southern part of Missis-
sippi.
Rapid Increase.
Now, let us look at the metamor-
phosis, or life history of the insect. |
The life history is in four stages:
egg, larya, pupa, adult. The mother
weevil picks out a square and makes
a hole in it with her beak. Here she |
deposits an egg and pushes it firmly
down into the hole and plasters it up
with a sticky fluid. Each mother
weevil lays from rs to $50 eggs,
and each egg is laid in a separate
square Thus a single weeVil will
destroy from Z 5to $50 squares, for
every square that receives an egg is !
destroyed. In a few days after the