288 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 45 



in control, the boll weevil is still taking an enormous toll of about one 

 bale of every seven produced. This annual loss of over a million and 

 a half bales of cotton, together with the seed, is valued at some 

 $200,000,000 at average farm prices. Since the boll weevil causes 

 more damage in the United States than in any other country, the 

 American grower is at a disadvantage in a highly competitive world 

 market. It is not feasible of course to prevent all this loss to a 

 low-value-per-acre crop like cotton, but it is estimated that more than 

 half of the losses now caused by the weevil can be economically pre- 

 vented by the more general use of control measures. 



PERCENT 

 30 



1910 1915 1920 1925 1930 1935 1940 1945 



Figure 2. — Boll-weevil damage 1909-1945. Percent reduction from full yields 

 as reported by crop correspondents. 



The weevil damage is most severe in southern and eastern Texas, 

 Louisiana, and the central parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia 

 where the winters are comparatively mild, the rainfall abundant, and 

 there are large areas of favorable hibernation quarters. The winters 

 in the northern part of the belt usually kill sufficient hibernating 

 weevils to hold the damage down, so that little insecticidal control is 

 needed. Part of the extreme southern areas where the soils are of 

 low production capacity have found it more profitable to change to 

 other crops than to compete with the boll weevil. The present acreage 

 planted to cotton in Florida is less than 10 percent of the pre-boll- 

 weevil acreage. Sea island cotton is the finest quality of cotton and 

 was a profitable industry in Florida and the coastal plains of Georgia 

 and South Carolina before the boll-weevil invasion. It fruits over a 

 long period, the bolls are soft, and subject to weevil attack until they 

 open. Production has practically ceased, owing largely to weevil 

 damage. Weevil damage is partly responsible for the expansion of 

 cotton production in west Texas and Oklahoma, where the hot, arid 

 climate prevents the weevil from becoming abundant, and in the irri- 

 gated sections of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, where the boll 

 weevil has never become established. There is evidence that the boll 



