276 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



Farmers, merchants, and bankers were bankrupted ; farms and homes 

 in whole communities were deserted ; labor and tenants were demoral- 

 ized and moved to other sections; and a general feeling of panic and 

 fear followed the boll weevil as it moved into locality after locality. 

 It became the theme of numerous verses and folk songs, and the 

 "Ballad of the Boll Weevil" as sung by the Texas Negroes in the nine- 

 ties was the basis of the early "blue" songs. The boll weevil became 

 known, by name and reputation at least, to every man on the street 

 and affected every home — something tangible that was responsible for 

 crop failures as well as their other troubles. 



THE FIGHT AGAINST THE BOLL WEEVIL 



Research to reduce the losses from the boll weevil was started by 

 the then Division of Entomology in 1894 shortly after the first infesta- 

 tion was reported in Texas and has continued to the present time, with 

 only a short interruption from 1898 to 1900, when the State of Texas 

 made a special boll weevil appropriation and all work on this pest was 

 handled by the State entomologist. As other States became threatened 

 with invasion, Congress made a special boll-weevil appropriation to 

 enable the Bureau of Entomology in 1901 to discover, if possible, 

 means of preventing spread into adjacent States. Dr. W. D. Hunter 

 was placed in charge of the work, a post he filled with distinction until 

 his death in 1925. Many entomologists later became associated with 

 the Federal and State investigations of the boll weevil, and their con- 

 tributions to various phases of the work are too numerous to mention 

 individually. The work was enlarged in 1902 and a laboratory estab- 

 lished at Victoria, Tex. In 1904 the appropriation of $250,000 made 

 to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to fight the ravages of the boll 

 weevil was the largest amount ever appropriated for any insect up to 

 that time. The Bureau of Entomology had already found that changes 

 in cultural practices of cotton reduce weevil losses, and part of the 

 money was made available to the Bureau of Plant Industry to demon- 

 strate to cotton growers how to produce cotton under boll-weevil con- 

 ditions. These large-scale demonstrations were so valuable to the 

 cooperating growers that the Farmers' Cooperative Demonstration 

 Work has developed into what is now the Federal and State extension 

 services. 



As the boll weevil spread into new territory, the laboratory was 

 moved from Victoria to Dallas, Tex., in 1905 and another laboratory 

 established at Tallulah, La., in 1909. Since that time field laboratories 

 have been established at various strategic places in the Cotton Belt 

 to study local features of the boll-weevil problems. New problems are 

 still constantly arising. 



