The Pulaskian., 1921-10-27
ALARMED BY
 BOIL WEEVIL
ALL FUTURE CROPS IN JEOP- ARDY UNLESS MEANS ARE FOUND TO WIPE OUT PEST, SAYS ARTHUR RICHMOND MARSH. {


 MARSH.
 Some alarm over the fact that re- ports show the boil weevil to have spread to practically every part of the American cotton belt, is expressed by Arthur Richmond Marsh, writing in the Economic World. Events have shown, says MT. Marsh, that the re- duction of the 1921 crop to the small est since 1884, is due to the boil wee vii, "and to the boil weevil alone"
 However beneficial may be the inn mediate monetary effect of the crop disaster, he says, ''the stern fact must be faced, that the situation from which 1t developed ''holds threat of the direst kind, not only against the future economic well-being of the United States, but also against that of the entire American people"
 'sWhile it is fortunately true that, by reason of the large supply of cot ton from former years that have been left unconsumed through the reduced purchasing power of hundreds of millions of people all over the globe, there can be no dearth of this indis- pensable raw material for more than a twelvemonth to come," he goes on to say, it is equally true that if the production of cotton in the United States is to be reduced in future years to anything like the proportions of the present crop, the economic conse- quences will be harmful beyond any possible imagining.
 First and last, cotton is one of the chief sources of our national wealth, as we'll as one of the prin- cipal bases of the health and com fort of our entire population; and it is really appalling to contemplate the changes in these respects that would result from having cotton sud denly become one of the scareest and dearest of textile raw materials in- stead of one of the most abundant and cheapest, as we have been ac- customed to have 1t.
 And in this connection the great. est reason for anxiety is to be found in the real cause of the unexampled reduction of the production of cot ton in the United States this year namely, the spread of the destructive insect known as the cotton boil wee vii tor Mexican boil weevil) to prac- tically every part of the American cotton belt and its complete defiance of all efforts to keep 1t under con trol.
 Tt is true, to be sure, that the cot ton farmers, oppressed by the heavy burden of unsold cotton they were carrying forward from former sea- sons, did this year deliberately re- duce their cotton acreage by some 30 per cent, as compared with that plant ed last year. Even so, however, the cotton area in the United States for 1921 is greater than that for any year of record until after the beginning of the present century and quite suf- ficient, given ordinarily favorable weather and freedom from the raw ages of the boil weevil, to yield a crop of ll,000,000 or, even 12,000,- 900 bales.
 ''Nor has the weather during the present growing season, taken as a whole, been exceptionally unfavor- able; on the contrary, it has been quite good enough to give us crop of we'll over l0,00O,000 of bales upon the acreage actually planted to cot ton. It is, therefore, to the boil wee vii, and to the boil weevil alone, that we must attribute the cotton crop calamity that has occurred.
 And now the question that is pro- foundly disturbing all minds in the cotton trade proper and in the cot ton manufacturing industry is wheth- CT this insect, for which no method of control or even of substantial al- deviation has as yet been discovered, has at last attained such domination over the production of cotton in the United States that henceforth we must expect our annual yield of cotton to be not much more than sufficient to supply the needs of our own mills, leaving next to nothing for export to the countries that have heretofore re- lied upon us for the greater part of their requirements of this raw ma terial.
 ''There is, of course, always the hope that science may find way to check so great an evil-and it may be added that, in view of what is at stake, no expense can be deemed too oreat for scientific Ivork in this field