Evening star., 1941-02-23

ing cattle industry from what for
time looked like extinction.
| In 1889 the department became an
executive branch of the Government
| under a cabinet officer, and it began
drawing an annual appropriation of
nearly S2,0O0,000.
In 1898 the department came up
/ against its second war The agency
was far better prepared for the
| Spanish-American than it was for
/ the Civil War. and it did some of its
best work for our Cuban expedi-
tionary force through the tremen-
dous development of the Weather
Bureau, now returned from the
Army.
In order to protect our fleet of
more than 200 naval and merchant
/ vessels, Is Weather-forecast and sig
nal stations were set up throughout
the Caribbean, either by the
Weather Bureau itself or through
cooperation with the countries in
volved. Among the stations we're
those at Santiago, Kingston, Mas
sau and Vera Cruz. Their i'm
portance cannot be overestimated
because the Caribbean has always
been a treacherous hurricane belt
and We had never before assembled
such an armada in the region.
Other advances comparable to
that of the Weather Bureau would
| doubtless have been noted by the
department owing TO its accelerated
tempo at this period. were it not for
the fact that the conflict was of so
/ short duration.
Use of Wireless.
At about this time the same
bureau was the first official United
States body to carry on experiments
with the latest "new-fangled inven-
tion"-the wireless telegraph. The
bureau claims in its records that it
constructed the best receiver set
in the country in the course of its
tests. However, the bureau appar-
emily lacked time or funds or both
| to continue development of the
wireless and turned over the whole
| project and its accumulated knowl-
edge to the Navy Department.
BY 1904, a diminutive insect was
giving this Nation a greater beating
than the Spaniards had ever hoped
to do
In that year the boil weevil had
gnawed its way through the equiv
alent of 100000 bales of cotton. re-
sulting in an estimated financial
loss of some s22,000000. Cotton
planters. both big and little, we're
facing ruin.
The weevil was not an unknown
insect. AS early as l843 it had been
discovered in Mexico by a Swedish
scientist, and was known to exist
also in Central America in vary
ing quantities. Not until 1893, how
ever, did it cross the Rio Grande
into Texas and began to go to work
on tasty United States cotton. The
following year in the region about
Corpus Christi, Tex, and San Diego
Calf, from rs to 80 per cent Of
the crop was destroyed.
An initial appropriation of a
quarter of million dollars was al
located to the department in 1904
to combat the hungry insect. Vari-
GUS methods were tried ranging
from poisons to insectivorous birds.
The weevil, however, had taken
hold and was not to be easily dis
lodged. After much experiment it
was found that the best means of
fighting the menace lay in a more
careful maturing Of cotton crops.
Cultivation of this all-important
plant had always been carried on
in somewhat of haphazard man
ner, with little attention paid either
to the soil or the growing plants
Under advice of the Department
of Agriculture farmers began to
concentrate on growing the cotton