The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-09-11


 TELLULAH, La, Sept. 10.-Aftei 15 years of intensive effort on the part of science, backed up by the resources of the United States government and inspired by the hopes of millions ot people-farmers, merchants, bankers and other clements which derive theil prosperity from cotton-there is good ground for the belief that the boil weevil, which has become king of S1 per cent of the cotton belt, will lose its throne, and eventually be completely routed. If present beliefs are upheld a. way has bern found to lure him te sdestfnetion the odor that attraefs hi1 to cotton seems to have been isolated and he will follow the odor even if il leads to death instead of to cotton field.
 The men who have achieved this re- suit are not letting their hopes run toe high. But they are rejoicing in the fact that they have made great step forward in the contest which they have been waging with this pest. They have accomplished. enough to convince them that they have found the lure which will lead the boil weevil to destruction and now are engaged in checking up, and perfecting it, before making a .defi- nite announcement to the world.
 Idea Not New.
 The idea is not a new one. Science has devised many kinds of lures for insect pests. From the first appearance of the boil weevil in Texas, igenious minds have searched for the thing that would attract him. For many years the state of Texas had a standing of fer of a reward of $50,000 for an ef- fective poison or method of eradication for this pest. Other states, as they felt his ravages, have also offered rewards, but the weevil moved steadily eastward, crossed the Mississippi river, and has touched the Atlantic in the Carolinas and Virginia
 ThonsanGs Of remedies have been of- fered, thousands of devices have been tried, but none of them has stayed his progress or diminished his destructive ness, except one, the poisoning of the cotton plant with calcium arsenate. But that has turned out to be only one step in the waffal, on the weevil. It is an exceedingly important step, and will prove to be one of the controlling factors in the eventual triumph of sci ence. Of itself it is effective but where you have to chase the pest with the poison, many escape it.
 Luring Him To Poison
 The problem thus posed is how to lure the weevil to the poison. On this the government scientists at the Delta laboratories in Tellulah have been work ing for many years.
 The boil weevil is an uniferous in- sect. That fact was established early in the investigation. While it survives over the winter, hibernating in the bark of trees, in reed canes, in various forms of vegetation, it t,rives its life from the cotton plant, and has an uncanny method of locating a cotton patch, no matter how isolated it may be.
 Soon after the establishment of the laboratories in 1909 the scientists be. gan seeking that part of the cotton plant which held the lure for the wee. vii. That was a long and painstaking process. It was work for the chemist and it required chemist with peculiar qualifications, and he began work on the problem but the great war came ard this chemist, who was German was interned. The war interfered with the work of the laboratories in other ways. But afterward the threads of in vestlgation were picked up and gaps in the personnel were soon filled.
 Cotton plants were picked to pieces analysed, each separate particle pull veriZed, reduced almost to it's original element, distilled. concentrated, treated
 (COntinued on Page 1S.)