176 COTTON 



and 1865 its ravages, gradually increasing, forced 

 the farmers finally to abandon the culture of cotton. 

 Cotton was not grown then for a great many years 

 until it was thought safe to make another effort. 

 But scarcely had operations begun anew before 

 there appeared the ancient foe hidden up to that 

 time, of course, but where no one knows and de- 

 stroyed the crop. Twenty years later the insect 

 was noticed at Matamoras, carrying on the same 

 destructive work; but it stopped not here. In ten 

 years it reached the Rio Grande. Checked for 

 a moment, but not baffled, it goes on, continuing 

 in its attempt to cross the river, which it succeeds 

 in doing within a year or two. Once across, more 

 bold now, it makes its campaign with quickness 

 and dispatch, entrenching itself at Brownsville, 

 Texas. Not waiting to subjugate completely the 

 surrounding territory, it hurries on with darting 

 jumps, and within a year it has fastened its hold 

 upon San Diego, Alice and Beeville. This was in 

 1894. The interior does not stop it; for within a 

 year it goes still further to the North, doing consid- 

 erable damage at Floresville, and reaching even 

 San Antonio. Likewise it pushes to the East and 

 to the Gulf, reaching Victoria, Cuero, and sends 

 its scouts to Wharton also. The last ten years 

 has been a period of entrenchment and invasion 

 to a peculiar degree. Practically all of the cotton- 

 growing territory of Texas is now invaded ; and the 

 weevil has crossed into Louisiana, and has even 

 threatened Indian Territory. 



Its ravages have been great, and for the last 

 four years the annual amount lost to the cotton 

 growers of Texas has been approximately twenty- 

 five millions of dollars. Including the loss to 

 ginners, manufacturers, and other allied industries, 



