State Crop Pest Commission of 



liensive plans for eradication can be perfected, and these must be 

 based upon an exhaustive study of the tick from the entomologi- 

 cal standpoint to determine its vulnerable points under all con- 

 ditions. 



I have on former occasions, by speech and by writing, shown 

 the enormous benefit to be derived from the eradication of the 

 cattle tick. In those utterances I have chiefly dwelled on the 

 subject from the standpoint of the husbandman. But there is 

 a feature to it that has not been extensively mentioned as yet, 

 and with which I, as a cotton grower, am much more concerned 

 than as a producer of live stock. Indeed, for the Southern 

 United States this view of the matter, to which I wish now to call 

 your special attention, is much more important and far-reaching 

 than all others. 



The point which I wish to make clear and bring prominently 

 to your attention is this: That the eradication of the cattle ticl' 

 is a necessity in order to maintain the future undisputed suprem- 

 acy of the United States in the production of cotton. 



I will say that at the present and in the immediate future 

 the cattle tick, as an indirect enemy to the cotton industry, ex- 

 ceeds in importance the muchly and justly dreaded boll weevil, 

 and that, as an enemy to the cotton industry, the cattle tick con- 

 stitutes from now on until it is eradicated from the cotton pro- 

 ducing states, a more important factor in our national economy 

 than it does directly as a hindrance in the production of live 

 stock, notwithstanding the enormity of the damage caused by it 

 in the latter role. 



The chief industry of the Southern United States should and 

 must forever be the production of cotton, for more than one 

 reason. 



First, among all known lands ours seems best suited to the 

 growing of this one great world necessity. 



Second, it is the product which makes foreign countries 

 yearlj'^ our debtors in the interchange of goods. 



Third, cotton, among all products of the earth brought forth 

 directly by the soil, is the one most ideally adapted for a coun- 

 try's export, because by the exportation of the cotton fibre we 

 do not rob our soil of any appreciable amount of fertility, which 



