T30 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



crop system was being done away with and that diversification was 

 being promoted. The nine results discussed by Doctor Poe were as 

 follows : 



(i) The boll weevil is speeding up the processes of agricultural evolution in 

 the South. 



(2) The boll weevil discourages absentee landlordism, which has been one 

 of the great curses of the South. 



(3) The ancient crop-mortgage, "time-prices" system, which has so long 

 cursed the South, has also been hard hit by the coming of the boll weevil. 



(4) Agriculture will become more nearly boss of itself (and not the tool of 

 the mercantile interests). 



(5) The "boll weevil sharply penalizes the traditional indifference to soil 

 fertility which has also been one of the curses of the South. 



(6) The boll weevil necessitates higher grade tenants and renters and dis- 

 perses those who do not come up to the new standards. 



(7) We must now have more intelligent labor, even to make cotton profitable, 

 and this opens the way for other lines of farming progress heretofore neglected. 



(8) The boll weevil penalizes agricultural indifference and insures agricultural 

 alertness. 



(9) Last but not least, the coming of the boll weevil promises to give us on 



southern farms a greater proportion of men who really love farming The 



weevil has greatly intensified the struggle for the " survival of the fittest " and 

 has caused thousands of the unfit to go into other industries and other sections. 

 .... From now on, cotton growing demands alert intelligence. The boll weevil 

 has speeded up both the passing of the clodhopper and the coming of the up-to- 

 date farmer. 



In the great boll weevil investigation two names stand out most 

 prominently among those of many who from time to time have been 

 connected with it, namely W. D. Hunter and B. R. Coad. 



W. D. Hunter, of Nebraska, selected for the work in the spring 

 of 1 90 1 on account of the ability he had shown in another investi- 

 gation, stayed in the cotton states, mainly in Texas, for the rest of his 

 life. Centering around the boll weevil, his work gradually came to 

 cover the whole subject of insects injurious to southern field crops, 

 and later of insects afifecting domestic animals and the health of man. 

 He was respected and loved by many of the most prominent people 

 of the South, and no man was ever more sincerely mourned. He com- 

 bined scientific methods and scientific insight with a broad knowl- 

 edge of practical affairs to an extent seldom found in an individual. 



B. R. Coad came to the laboratory at Victoria, Texas, from the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois in 191 1. In 191 5 he was placed in charge of the boll 

 weevil laboratory at Tallulah, Louisiana, and Doctor Hunter gradually 

 turned over to him the entire management of the boll weevil work. 

 Coad developed the process of cotton dusting with calcium arsenate 

 to such a perfection that it became the standard protection of cotton 



