83 



The National government has spent more than .fl, 000,000 in 

 tlie investigations which have been made to discover effec- 

 tive methods of controlling the pest, and the various states 

 r.tfected have also expended large sums. The information 

 and recommendations given in the following pages are 

 gathered from the best that has been learned in this great 

 i^truggle. A few of the important publications con- 

 cerning the weevil are referred to in the Bibliography on 

 page 100. 



Since 1892 the weevil has spread Northward through 

 Texas and the Southern half of Oklahoma and Eastward, 

 crossing Louisiana, the Mississippi Ri\'er and into Missis- 

 sippi. From the infested territory each year it spreads ever 

 onward as wave after wave spreads outward when a stone 

 is cast into water. The old territory is not abandoned since 

 only part of the host of weevils which is developed by fall 

 will leave the field to seek new territory. Undoubtedly 

 many fly back into previously infested fields where their 

 presence is lost sight of but those which happen to fly in 

 to new localities quickly establish a new line of infestatior. 

 which can be quite readily marked. 



The distance through which they have thus advanced has 

 averaged fully fifty miles each year. The first weevils 

 crossed the Mississippi River in the fall of 1907 and during 

 the fall of 1908 eighteen counties in the western part of that 

 State became either wholly or p'artially infested. The area 

 now infested constitutes more than one third of the cotton 

 growing area of the United States and produces nearly one- 

 half of the annual crop. The limits of the infestation, the 

 relationship which this bears to the entire commercial 

 cotton growing area, and the annual progress of the pest 

 during recent years are plainly shown upon the accompany- 

 ing map. Fig. 1. which was prepared by Mr. W. D. Hunter 

 during the fall of 1908 from data collected by the numerous 

 field agents of the Bureau of Entomology investigating the 

 spread of the boll weevil. 



