The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1917-04-22

kinds, such as poisons, traps, mechan-
ical catching devices and chemicals
for fumigating.
The fact that the boil weevil's feed
ing habits render him practically i'm
mune to ordinary methods of poison
ing or trapping is not very we'll known
to the average farmer. He is, there
fore, a more susceptible victim to the
numerous schemes employed by the
smooth talker, who not infrequently
is as poorly informed on the facts as
his unsuspecting patron. Aside from
the loss in money the confidence re-
posed by the farmer in the thing pur-
chased induces him to feel secure in
the thought that, having a device for
beating the weevil, his crop is assured.
The time lost in not doing the things
that really reduce the weevil enables
them to go about their business of
destroying a crop until it is too late
TO save it. The loss of crop where
some of the numerous devices have
been tried out and failed frequently
destroys confidence in anything advo-
Gated whether practical or not. All
of the states TO the west of Georgia
during the last quarter Of a century
the weevils have been in this coun-
try, have during that time, passed
through the situation this state is now
facing. Fortunes have been gathered
from cotton farmers, by rascals and
ignorant men, who have had some
thing to sell.
Probably the most attractive and
best seller of them all has been the
trap with light in it to catch the
weevil at night. A basin holding oil
set about in the field with the light
burning at night, it is calculated to at
tract the weevil, and, flying against
the light, cause them to get singed
by the flame or fall into the oil and
perish. This scheme has been employ
ed to destroy flying insects for prob
ably a hundred years, and while it
may prove successful with some, it
has not with the boil weevil, for the
at night. AS the shades Of darkness
come on the weevil finds lodging in
cotton blossom or bud which closes
up and there it remains all night. Ig-
norant of this fact, cotton farmers
have invested in these traps and en1s
ployed them so literally that fields at
night often resemble Coney Island in
midsummer.
All efforts to poison the weevil have
failed. 1t first appears in the bunch
Of small leaves at the top Of the plant
known as the terminal bud" By pull
ing back these small leaves it may
be discovered feeding on the tender
juices of the plant. Coat oil will kill it,
but a sufficient amount poured in the
bud will also kill the plant.
The idea that soaking cotton seed
before planting in some kind of rank
poison would cause the plant to draw
the poison up where the weevil feeds,
is another old-time idea that was long
ago exploded 1t is known that this
idea was first advocated in the early
ages as a general remedy for plants
infested with insects that do damage.
But it has been a dismal failure with
the cotton weevii, which sticks it's
bill into the tender parts and draws
| them in. If it bit his food like some
worms and bugs it would be an easy
matter to dust on paris green or arse
nate of lead, but it sucks instead Of
bites.
All catching devices have proven to
be failures. An idea that has been
quite generally accepted as practical
was a machine with a suction attach
ment that would suck the weevil out
Of the plant and into a contained hav-
/ lIB UJI III II WHICH WOulu QcSlICJ llIGIi
Examined under a powerful glass, one
will observe that the weevil have a
number of extensions or spines on the
| legs. When an attempt is made to
dislodge it thrusts these parked ex-
| tensions into the plant and hangs on.
! Pulling it out is much like attempting
to draw a cat by the tail across a car
pet Drawing the substance from the
inside of the bud or square makes suck.
ing out impossible by any device 9th
er than two human fingers that secure
q good hold and hang on. Children
accomplish this as we'll as men, once
they learn how
Agents Of the state college of Agri-
culture found the trail Of an agent
selling a weevil-catching machine in
Coffee county recently. AS a rule the
agents and vendors of these various
notwithstanding schemes give coun-
ties employing. a demonstration agent
wide berth, for a part of his duties
! is to advise against investing in some