The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-11
Scientists Find WeeuiI May
 Be Lured To His Death
Great Possibilities Held Out For New Discov-
 cry In Pest Fight
fCoHtinued from Page, One)


 ticular element in the plant. That was a very laborious process, because the researches had to allow for the fact that perhaps some portion of the plant would yield an odor, which, not recog- nized by human being, was the very one which holds a lure for the weevil.
 His "Nose Knows" r All insects depend more upon their olfactories than upon sight and the boil weevil is no exception to the rule. In fact this dependence. upon his nose is more accentuated in him than in most insects. So the delicacy of the process of separating the particles which yield recognizable and unrecognizable odors can we'll be imagined.
 A metal runway was constructed with little apartments at intervals in which were placed the distillates from different parts of the cotton plant. Then a stated number of weevils were released at one end, while the scientists watched their movements. For years this game went on with no indication that any od0r had been found which possessed marked attraction for the weevil. In fact, many. were found which repelled him.
 This year, however, during the mid summer york, the chemists. working patiently day in and day out, finding new diStillates, attended periodical march of the weevils up the runway and watched patiently to see if any number of .weeviIs moved towards any particular .by-path. They saw them creep along, as usual, pass one apart ment after another. with no show of interest, but presently there was a new movement; they. had found an objec- tive.
 Almost the whole, group marched to one of the little compartments.
 This was something, at last, a shout of joy went up.
 But scientists are d-blo0ded .peo- pie. They check and re-check and re- peat time after time, before they are triumph was stilled in the labor of proving up.
 Still Verifying Tests.
 And that labor is still going on, and may go on for year of more before definite announcement is made. They have found two odors which seem to attract the weevil.- The work ahead now is to carry on the experiments with these odors, to isolate, the element in the plant which produces them, to determine what degree of the Odor is most effective, and last but by far the most important thing, to find out what is the cost of manufacture-whether it is available for the one horse farmer who rarely has enough money to buy his seasons supplies after his crop is sold ..-a 2
 As to the use that can be made of the lure, how it can be made to effec- lively draw. the weeNils to his destruc- tion, many experiments are already un- der way. One method might be to place it in a trap or series of traps in a field. Another would be to impregnate certain small patches in a field with an intensified distillate, and when the weevils from that vicinity were attract led to the patch to supply arsenate poison. = Ss'sl
 This is as important as the main dis coyery, but not nearly sos difficult of fsoIutibn.
 K Staff Of s9 Men.
 The Delta laboratories have been un- der the direction of Dr. B. R. Coad since 1915, and his. staff eompOses S2 men, many of them scientists of note.
 The laboratories early experiments determined the fact that calcium arse nate was the most effective and the most practical poison for the weevil. The workers.-test out, every device that is offered, and the grounds are strewn with the symbols of the futile hopes of inveDtors all over the world.
 The work has brO6ght discoveries that are useful in other fields. The most striking of these is the very re- Pcent diseovely of the identification of articles, of calcium arsenate during air plane distribution, which results in separation and adhesion to the plant which, gives off negative electricity. Halt a dozen chemists of great indus trial plants have already visited the laboratories to. investigate the0 discOv- cry and apply it ir their work. . The lateSc discOvery->F OdOr--is the most promising yet made.
 Appalling Havoc
 The economic significance of this discovery cannot be 0yerestimated. Computations of the bureau of asricul- ture show that the boil weevil destroys about $500, ,OO0, 900 worth of cotton in America every year. This is only the direct loss. The indirect loss, due to the damage to industry and economic life subordinate to cotton growing can not be estimated. The scientists have disputed many a ditch with the boil weevil-this tiny bettle the size of a fly, this insect that has become an in ternati0nal figure, that is making Egypt rich, because, without it, she has an advantage over the United States in cotton production. The shortage of cotton in America keeps the world price high, and Egypt is shuddering for fear it may cross the ocean.
 The boil weevil is an invader from Mexico. It crossed the Rio Grande, at Brownsville, Tex, in 1892. Soon after ward, Dr. l.. O., Howard. ,. head of the bureau of entomology, who is now di- rectlng the experiments at Browns vile, warned Congress that here was a foe which would eventually destroy many millions of dollars, and he out lined methods by which it could have been successfully combated. Nothing was done. The insect h0rdes kept up a steady year-by-year forward march, spreading out fan-wise over the cot ton area. By 1894, it had spread to half dozen counties in southern Tex as. Since then, it has annually ex- tended its range from 40 to 1GO miles. During the first ten years after its ar rival, its annual spread was 5,64O square miles. From 1901 to 1911, the annual increase in the infested terri tory averaged 26,SS0 square miles. In 1916 is covered 71 800 square miles.
 Covers S7 Per Cent
 At the end of 1922, 614,213 square miles of territory had been infested by the boil weeyil.5 This was S7 per cent of the total, leaving only about 91 900 square miles uninfested. Only the far western margin 0f the cotton belt is free from the pest.