JOURNAL 



OF 



ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS 



Vol. I AUGUST, 1908 No. 4 



THE FIRST AND LAST ESSENTIAL STEP IN COM- 

 BATING THE BOLL WEEVIL^ 



By W. E. HiXDS, Ph. D. 

 The Problem of Weevil Control 



Statement of the Problem. — During the past fifteen years the Mex- 

 ican cotton boll weevil has spread throughout Texas, northward to 

 about the middle of Oklahoma and southeastward from that region 

 through southern Arkansas nearly to the Mississippi River, them 

 southward through Louisiana, covering practically the entire western 

 portion of the state and even spreading across the river into a few 

 of the southwestern counties of Mississippi. Nothing seems likely 

 to permanently check its eastward movement throughout the other 

 cotton-growing states. It now infests practically one half of the cot- 

 ton-growing area and is doing damage which can hardly be esti- 

 mated at less than $25,000,000 a year. 



To the entomologist the practical problem is that of reducing the 

 injury within the infested area to the smallest possible amount and to 

 restrict the spread of the pest so far as it may be within human power 

 to do so by the enforcement of quarantine regulations to prevent its 

 being carried long distances into uninfested territory by commercial 

 agencies. 



Brief Survey of the Results of Investigational Work on Control 



Factors in Natural Control. — These factors are, by their very na- 

 ture, inconstant and unreliable, although they may often be of prime 

 importance and are apparently of generally increasing value. The 

 uncertainty of climatic factors which are sometimes of greater im- 



iRcad before the Association of Economic Entomologists, at Chicago, 111., 

 December, 1907. 



