FEDERAL HORTICULTURAL, BOARD. 507 



of seed and lint of 1918. In the meantime an intensive survey was 

 made of the entire Rio Grande and Pecos Valley districts without 

 the location of other infested cotton. 



The clean-up operations in the Rio Grande Valley were compara- 

 tively simple on account of the small acreage. The similar operations 

 in the Pecos Valley assumed considerable proportions and involved at 

 times a labor force of from 500 to 1,000 persons. In this work coop- 

 eration was secured with the War Department to the extent of the 

 loaning by that department of considerable equipment for the housing 

 of labor, the available equipment which had been accumulated by the 

 board in the previous year's work in southeastern Texas not being 

 sufficient for the needs. ' The farmers also cooperated very heartily in 

 this work, and other labor was obtained from El Paso and like near-by 

 sources. The infestation in tlio Pecos region was very slight, less 

 than a score of larva? being found altogether. To be on the safe side, 

 however, the area cleaned was extended well beyond the outer infested 

 pomts, involving perhaps altogether in the Pecos Valley nearly 5,000 

 acres. 



Neither of these new regions presented the same risk to the cotton 

 industry of the South as did the outbreak in eastern Texas, on account 

 of their remoteness from other areas of cotton culture. In view of this 

 fact and, as applying to the Pecos district, the consideration that 

 alfalfa — the only other dependable crop in this district — could not be 

 successfully established in the spring of 1919, a plan was devised per- 

 mitting the planting of cotton in the Pecos district for 1919 under 

 what seemed to be fully adequate safeguards. The cotton seed for 

 planting of the 1919 crop was obtained from uninfested districts and 

 the crop of this year has been and will be under the full control of 

 the State and Federal authorities. The planters have agreed to the 

 further condition that after 1919 this district shall become a strictly 

 noncotton zone for such period as may be determined to be necessary. 



A noncotton zone was immediately established for the Great Bend 

 district of the Rio Grande. This action was taken on account of the 

 known infestation on the Mexican side of the river and the probability 

 that otherwise Mexican cotton would be smuggled across, which it 

 would be impo3si1)le later to distinguish from cotton grown on the 

 American side. 



GBOWTH OF COTTOX PEimiTTEU IX THE QUAEAIsTINED ZOXE OF EASTERN TEXAS. 



With respect to the proclaimed noncotton zones in eastern Texas 

 of 1918, a plan of agreement was entered into for the planting of 

 cotton in these districts under strict State and Federal supervision. 

 The planters in this region were very insistent that they should bo 

 alloAved to phmt cotton under suitable precautions. The fact that the 

 great majority' of the planters in these areas had cooperated heartily 

 in the enforcement of the noncotton restrictions in 1918, and the fur- 

 ther fact that no infestation by the pink bollworm had been discovered 

 througliout that year in any of the volunteer cotton or in the illegally 

 planted fields, led the State authorities, after consultation with this 

 department, to devise a plan for the planting of cotton in these areas, 

 other than the zone on the Mexican border. In addition to the con- 

 trol which the State will exercise over the crop — crushing all seed and 

 foreign export of lint — such planters entered into an agreement to 



