The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1922-06-21
DANGER AHEAD.

Banner has received information
about the activities of the boil wee
vii which should be duly considered
by the people of the county. The boil
weevil last year practically destroyed
the cotton crop of the lower half of
the county. The mild winter, as was
predicted, left many old weevils sur
viving, and they are on the cotton
now waiting for the formation of the
squares, when they will commence
propagation and their destructive
work.
An examination of fields of cotton
in the lower section of the county
reveals the presence of from one to
two weevils on every stalk of cot
ton. They are sometimes little hard
to find but they are there. And un-
less they are gotten rid of there will
not be a bale of cotton made to every
five acres planted. There is no guess
about that statement, we farmed
with the weevil last year. Reports in
dicate that the weevils are as numer-
Gus in other parts of the county as
in the infected area last year.
Then there is but one thing to do.
The farmers must make up their
minds to fight the weevil or lose their
cotton crops. That may be taken as
an established fact; it will be estab-
ished to the satisfaction of every
man who fails to use the best known
means to get rid of the weevil.
There is some diversity of opinion
as to the proper way to fight the wee
VII. Some say to work the cotton
fast; others to pick up the squares
and burn them; others to poison with
molasses poison; while the Depart
ment of Agriculture says to dust the
cotton with calcium arsenate. Our
advice to the readers of the Press
and Banner is to do all of these
things or as nearly all as possible.
Poisoning is not going to do a great
deal of good so long as the applica-
tions of the poison are followed by
rains, neither will the other sugges-
tions amount to great deal, but
dry weather is coming one of these
days and when it does the people
should get busy.
Poisoning is the main weapon for
fighting the weevil we believe, and
we advise every farmer in the coun-
ty to try his hand at the game. And
concerning poisoning it will be we'll
to consider the following from the
Department of Agriculture:
"In the first place it should be
remembered that we recommend
starting poisoning when from ten to
fifteen per cent of the cotton squares
have been punctured by the weevil.
AS a general rule this condition does
not arise until after the newly bred
weevils have started to emerge from
the squares. This year, however, we
have found many fields where there
are already sufficient weevils present
to destroy practically all squares as
fast as formed. In other words, such
cotton will never start blooming un-
less the weevils are controlled, and
from the very outset so per cent or
more of the squares are punctured.
Under such conditions it is undoubt-
edly going to be necessary to poison
earlier than ever before. Of course,
there is no advantage in poisoning the
cotton before the squares form, as
the weevils are continuing to emerge
from Information during this period
and furthermore they are doing the
crop no harm. However, where such
a heavy infestation occurs it will be
advisable to make the first applica-
ton Just as soon as the cotton starts
squaring freely, or about the time
the plants average from a to 5
squares each. The regular poisoning
schedule should be started at that
time and continued along the lines of
the usual recommendations for con-
trolling this early infestation of wee
wills.
Another very important effect of
this heavy infestation will be felt lat
or in the season. When the weevils