85 



WHEN WILL THE WEEVIL REACH ALABAMA? 



A brief study of this map with the facts stated relating 

 thereto should be enough to convince anyone that the ad- 

 vance of the boll weevil will most certainly continue. The 

 present northern limit of infestation is farther North geo- 

 graphically than is any portion of Mississippi, Alabama, or 

 Georgia. The existence of the boll weevil depends primarily 

 upon the occurrence of cotton which is its only known food 

 plant. Besides its dependence upon this food supply the 

 continued existence of the weevil dei>ends also upon its 

 ability to survive the winter climatic conditions in order to 

 pass from the crop of one season to that of the next. The 

 weevil has already shown that it can withstand successfully 

 temperatures reaching nearly if not quite to Zero F. which is 

 as low as is likely to occur anywhere in the cotton belt. 



The eastward spread of the weevil therefore promises to 

 be as certain and as rapid as was its northward spread 

 Ihrough Texas and Oklahoma until ultimatelv it shall infest 

 cotton wherever grown commercially in the SoutheasterT^ 

 States. Its spread may be accomplished in two general 

 ways. 



In the first place the weevil will continue to spread by its 

 own unaided flight which man is powerless to prevent. The 

 entire area embraced within a line passing through the 

 outermost points thus reached each year must be consider- 

 ed as constituting the "area of general infestation" although 

 the weevil may not occur at many of the places included 

 within but near the outermost edge of this area. The line- 

 referred to is "the line of general infestation" and this is 

 what we reckon with in the annual spread of the boll weevil. 

 It may be shown that this line has been steadily advanced 

 through an average distance of about fifty miles each year. 

 We may expect this rate to be maintained as the weevil' 

 continues eastward to the Atlantic Coast. From this basis 

 we may easily and quite certainly determine that in two 

 seasons more, that is by November 1910. we may expect the 

 line of general infestation to reach the Mississippi-Alabama 

 boundary. It is quite likely that some of the western tier of 



