6 Farmers’ Bulletin 1262. 
ments where weevil injury has been eliminated. Gains of five, six, or 
even seven hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre due to poisoning 
are not unusual, and in exceptional instances gains have exceeded 
one thousand pounds. 
PROSPECTS IN NEWLY INVADED TERRITORY. 
The boll weevil is now distributed over almost all of the important 
cotton-producing sections with the exception of North Carolina. 
Practically the only other territory remaining uninfested is the zone 
along the western margin of the cotton belt. Some of this territory 
has been. invaded in the past and the weevils have been driven back 
by adverse weather conditions. Whether the weevil will ever become 
seriously injurious in this territory is problematical, but it has shown 
marked ability to adapt itself to unfavorable conditions. Just how 
far this adaptation will extend it is impossible to predict. 
The progress of the weevil invasion has caused one erroneous im- 
pression. When the weevil invades a new district complaint is made 
of its serious injury to the cotton crop during the first two or three 
years, and then little more is heard of it. This naturally leaves the 
impression that the weevil is seriously injurious in a new territory 
for only a few years and then passes onward.’ This impression, how- 
ver, is not substantiated by facts. It is true that when weevils first 
invade a community there is nearly always more or less panic and 
a decided tendency to blame the weevil invasion for all short crops 
of cotton regardless of the real causes. Furthermore, the success- 
ful production of cotton in the presence of weevils requires some- 
what different methods from those practised before the advent of 
the weevil, and it usually takes the farmers two or three years to 
learn and adopt these methods. After a few years the farmers be- 
come accustomed to the weevil injury, learn to distinguish between 
loss due to the weevil and that attributable to other causes, and are able 
to reduce weevil injury somewhat by proper farming practices. The 
first fear has been overcome, and comparatively little is said on the 
subject. Farmers in the eastern portion of the cotton belt even ex- 
press the idea that the weevil is no longer doing any damage in 
Texas. Yet the cotton-growing season of 1921 has shown a total of 
more weevil damage in the State of Texas than that of any previous 
year. Once established in a community weevil injury will continue, 
and when weather conditions favorable to weevil survival and mul- 
tiplication are experienced serious injury must be expected. Since 
one of the most favorable conditions for weevils is excessive summer 
rainfall, the regions with the heaviest precipitation during the cot- 
ton-growing months will suffer the greatest damage. 
