ID 



doubtful, although the first fears entertained in many localities that 

 the cultivation of cotton would have to be abandoned have generally 

 been given up. An especially unfavorable feature of the i^roblem is 

 in the fact that the weevil i-eached Texas at what would have been, 

 from other considerations, the most critical time in the history of the 

 l)roduction of the staple in the State. The natural fertility of the 

 cotton lands had been so great that planters had neglected completely 

 such matters as seed selection, varieties, fertilizers, and rotation, that 

 must eventually receive consideration in any cotton-producing coun- 

 try. In general, the only seed used was from tiie crop of the preced- 

 ing year, unselected and of absolutely unknown variety, and the use 

 of fertilizers had not been practiced at all. Although it is by no 

 means ti'ue that the fertility of the soil had been exhausted-, neverthe- 

 less, on many of the older plantations in Texas the continuous plant- 

 ing of cotton with a run-down condition of the seed combined to make 

 a change necessary in order to continue the industry profitably. 



A careful examination of the statistics, to which more complete ref- 

 erence is made in Farmers' Bulletin No. 180, has indicated that the 

 pest causes a reduction in production for a few j'ears after its advent 

 of about 50 per cent, but at the same time it is evident that most 

 I)lantei's within a few years are able to adopt the changes in the sys- 

 tem of cultivating this staple that are made necessar}^ by the weevil, 

 so that the damage after a short time does not compare with that at 

 the begioning. Upon the foregoing basis, during the season of 1903 

 the weevil caused Texas cotton planters a loss of about 115,000,000, 

 and this estimate agrees rather well with estimates made in other 

 ways by the more conservative cotton statisticians. A similar esti- 

 mate made in 1902 led to the conclusion that the damage amounted 

 to about $10,000,000. It consequently appears that during the years 

 the i^est has been in Texas the aggregate damage Avould reach at least 

 150,000,000. Many conditions of climate and plantation practice in 

 the eastern portion of the cotton belt indicate that the weevil prob- 

 lem will eventually be as serious east of the Mississippi as it now is 

 in Texas. According to the estimates of Mr. Richard II. Edmunds, 

 the editor of Manufacturers' Record, the normal cotton croiJ of the 

 United States represents a value of |;500,000,000, the extreme ulti- 

 mate damage that the pest might accomplish over the entire belt 

 would be in the neighborhood of $250,000,000 annually, provided none 

 of the means of avoiding damage that are now coming into common 

 use in Texas were adopted. In spite of the general serious outlook, 

 however, it must be stated that fears of the damage the weevil may 

 do are very often much exaggerated, especially in newly invaded 

 regions. It is not at all necessary to abandon cotton. The work of the 

 Division of Entomology for several seasons has demonstrated that a 

 croja can be grown profitably in sjiite of the boll weevil, and this expe- 

 rience is duplicated by many planters in Texas. 



