LIVING WITH THE BOLL WEEVIL FOE FIFTY YEARS 



By U. C. Loftin * 



Division of Cotton Insects 



Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine 



Agricultural Research Administration 



U. S. Department of Agriculture 



[With 10 plates] 



Anthonomus grandis, the evil spirit that dwelleth amongst us" was 

 the text used by Dr. W. D. Hunter in describing to a Texas colored 

 congregation the recently established boll weevil that was destroying 

 the cotton crop on which they depended for daily bread. This red- 

 dish-brown snout beetle (pi. 1, fig. 1), measuring about one-fourth 

 inch in length and one-third as wide, is a native of Mexico or Central 

 America that existed in obscurity on the wild and small plantings 

 of cotton until it immigrated to the United States a little more than 

 50 years ago. Since the boll weevil reached the abundant food supply 

 provided by the almost continuous fields of cotton in the South it 

 has become the No. 1 cotton pest and has affected the economic and 

 social welfare of more Americans than any other insect 



The boll weevil was first described in 1843 by the Swedish ento- 

 mologist Boheman from specimens received from Vera Cruz, Mexico 

 and was next mentioned in the literature in 1870 by the German ento- 

 mologist Suffnan as occurring in Cuba. Nothing was known of its 

 food plants or habits until 1880, when the United States Commissioner 

 ot Agriculture received a communication from Dr. Edward Palmer 

 describing the serious damage to cotton and specimens of weevils 

 collected near Monclova, Coahuila, Mexico. 



The first report of its occurrence in the United States came to the 

 ^ 0n . of ^United States Department of Agriculture in the fall 

 of 1894 from Brownsville, Tex., where the weevil had crossed the 

 border before our frontiers were as well protected by quarantines as 

 they are today. Investigations that fall by Dr. C. H. T. Townsend 

 Zlv t , he ? Dlvlslon of Entomology showed that the boll weevil was 

 6Stabllshed m several so ^hern Texas counties and had probably been 



1 Mr. Loftin died January 16, 1946. 



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