432 ANNUAL EEPOETS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



THE PINK BOLLWORM. 



REVIEW OF WORK IN TEXAS. 



The establishment in tlie Laguna, the principal cotton-growing 

 district of Mexico, of a very serious enemy of cotton, the pink boll- 

 worm, an insect before unknown on the North American continent, 

 was discussed in the report of the Federal Horticultural Board last 

 year. There was also noted the establishment of a quarantine imme- 

 diately following this discovery, in November, 1916, prohibiting the 

 further entry of cotton or cotton seed from Mexico, and the provision 

 for a very complete border-control service to prevent the accidental 

 entry of such products with freight cars or other cars, or freight or 

 baggage, entering the United States from Mexico. A special ap- 

 propriation of $50,000 by Congress made possible the institution 

 of thoroughgoing inspection and clean-up operations with respect 

 to the mills in Texas, which had, prior to the discovery of this insect 

 in Mexico, received Mexican cotton seed for crushing. To secure 

 information as to the distribution of the pink bollworm in the 

 Laguna district and elsewhere in Mexico, as complete a survey as 

 was possible, under the disturbed conditions obtaining in Mexico 

 at that time, was made by experts of this department. 



As reported in a footnote added to the report for last year three 

 outbreaks of the pink bollworm were determined in Texas subse- 

 quent to the period covered in that report. Two of these undoubt- 

 edly originated from the seed received from Mexico during 1916, 

 viz., at Hearne, reported September 12, and at Beaumont, reported 

 October 15. The third area of infestation, reported October 21, is of 

 uncertain origin and proved to be of much greater importance than 

 the earlier ones, and involved a very considerable area surrounding 

 Trinity Bay, Tex. 



The clean-up operations which were instituted immediately on the 

 discovery of each of these several points of infestation were of the 

 most radical character and were made possible by a further emer- 

 gency appropriation by Congress of $250,000, available October 6, 

 1917. 



With respect to these several points of infestation the one at 

 Hearne, Tex., was very trivial and involved only a few fields of cot- 

 ton in the immediate neighborhood of the oil mill at that point 

 which had received seed from Mexico in 1916. Only a few injured 

 bolls were found and there is every reason to believe that the infesta- 

 tion at this point was entirely eliminated by the destruction of all 

 growing cotton and the clean-up of the cotton fields which was car- 

 ried out over a wide radius about the mill in question — a clean-up 

 which involved the uprooting and burning of the standing cotton, the 

 careful collection and burning of all scattered bolls and parts of 

 plants, the prompt milling and destruction of the seed, and the 

 shipment to Europe of the harvested lint. 



The infestation in the neighborhood of Beaumont was aggravated 

 by the fact that the mill in this instance violated its contract in re- 

 lation to seed imported prior to the quarantine of 1910; namely, to 

 use such seed for milling only and under a strict prohibition of sale 



