FEDERAL HORTICULTUEAL BOARD. 433 



for planting. It developed that this mill sold Mexican cotton seed 

 to a good many planters within a range of 20 or 80 miles of the mill, 

 with tlie result of infesting a large number of cotton fields. These 

 sales were all traced and the entire surrounding district was included 

 in the clean-up operations and subsequent State quarantine. 



The infestation about Trinity Bay, Tex., developed into an alarm- 

 ing situation, involving upward of 6,000 acres of cotton more or less 

 surrounding this bay. The source of the infestation about Trinity 

 Bay has not been definitely determined, but seems to have had no 

 relation to any importation of cotton seed from Mexico prior to the 

 establishment of the quarantine. The infestation in this district 

 indicates the probable presence there of the insect for three or four 

 years. The insect may have been introduced through some importa- 

 tion of foreign cotton seed in violation of the Federal quarantine, 

 or, as seems more probable, through some storm-wrecked cotton or 

 cotton seed from Mexico. Following the great storm of 1915 cotton 

 lint and cotton seed were observed quite generally washed up about 

 the shores of this bay, some of which was known to be from the 

 Laguna, Mexico, The distribution of the insect about the bay indi- 

 cated in the survey of the fall and winter of 1917 bears out this 

 theory of origin. 



A large force of experts and laborers was assembled and all the 

 infested fields about Beaumont and Trinity Bay were subjected to 

 the same radical clean-up previously carried out at Hearne, Tex. 

 The officials of the State Department of Agriculture of Texas co- 

 operated heartily, to the extent of available funds, in this survey 

 and clean-up work. A total of 8,794 acres of cotton land in the 

 Trinity Bay and Beaumont districts was thus cleaned of standing 

 and scattered cotton at an average cost of $9.94 per acre. At the 

 beginning the cost of the work was rather high, but as it progressed 

 and the men in charge became more familiar with it, the cost per 

 acre was considerably reduced. This cost does not include the teclmi- 

 cal supervision but merely the labor engaged in the actual clean-up, 

 and the transportation and subsistence of this labor where such was 

 necessary. In some cases field camps were established and main- 

 tained. The wages paid ranged from $1 to $2.50 per day, the ma- 

 jority of the men receiving $2 per day. 



An effort also was made, which was substantially successful, to col- 

 lect and mill under supervision all cotton seed grown in this section, 

 and to ship the lint cotton to foreign countries via Galveston. 



Prior to the discovery of the actual presence of the pink bollworm 

 in Texas it seemed important, to protect the United States from the 

 risk of entry of this insect by natural migration from Mexico, that 

 the State of Texas should enact legislation giving authority to estab- 

 lish a zone free from cotton culture on the border of Texas adjacent 

 to Mexico. A conference in Washington participated in by the com- 

 missioner of agriculture of Texas and other officials, including 

 Kepresentatives in Congress from that State, was therefore called 

 under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture 

 in July, 1917. This conference resulted in the passage of a law by 

 the State of Texas (Oct. 3, 1917) providing for the establishment of 

 cotton-free zones and giving quarantine and other powers of control 



