22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 



will bring a heap more than one." I found the cotton averaging about two 

 inches apart, on their fertile lands, the bottom lands of the Yang Tse 

 River, averaging about twenty inches high. That is a quality of cotton 

 worth about two cents below our cotton. 



Now, it is the same way in India. They do not understand our methods. 

 We cannot realixe how vastly superior the dullest of the Americans is, to 

 the millions on the other side of the world. And how it is impossible for 

 them to understand our methods. It will take them 150 years to get to 

 do things as we do them. They were born and raised that way. I know 

 something about it, on the part of the colored men ; for the statistics show 

 all over the South, the negro raises less cptton per acre, than the white 

 man, and when the boll weevil comes, I don't know whether he will raise 

 any at all. 



Therefore, I say that great possibilities are before us. The demand for 

 our cotton goods and cotton product has been increasing more rnpidly 

 than population; and if the boll weevil does not interfere, we will con- 

 tinue to supply the growing demands of the whole world. We must ex- 

 terminate, or surround or barricade, or degenerate the boll weevil in some 

 way, and I believe it will be done. 



Thereupon the Chairman announced that communications would be read, 

 and the Secretary read the following letters from the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, to-wit: 



ist. Letter to Hon. W. W. Heard, as follows: 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 

 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, 

 WASHINGTON, D. C, November 20, 1903. 

 HON. W. W. HEARD, 



Governor of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

 My Dear Sir : 



I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your courteous letter of 

 the I7th instant, inviting me to attend the Boll Weevil Convention called 

 to meet in New Orleans, on November 30. I regret exceedingly that pub- 

 lic duties will prevent me from being present, but I will see to it that the 

 Department is represented by some of our people who are well informed 

 regarding the situation. 



We have been carefully deliberating here, in conjunction with members 

 of Congress from the southwest, especially from Texas, what steps it will 

 be wise to take and what it will be wise to ask Congress for. We have 

 a lively interest in the matter, and will do everything in our power to 

 ameliorate conditions, both in Texas and with regard to any possible in- 

 vasion of Louisiana and States further east. 

 I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant, 



JAMES WILSON, Secretary. 



