PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOLL WEEVIL CONVENTION. 55 



this audience, the boll weevil has never had any terrors for me. I be- 

 lieve that we can destroy the boll weevil just as easy as we can destroy 

 the caterpillar. 1 know that we can destroy the boll worm. I have 

 demonstrated that to my entire satisfaction. I went into my field, a 

 few years ago, and laid out poison for the boll worm, and I do not 

 think I exaggerate, when I say that I destroyed every single solitary one 

 in that field. I went three days after setting out the poison and I found 

 them dead, in every shape, manner or form. I went into my neighbor's 

 field and I found there millions at work; that proved to me conclusively 

 that the boll weevil could be reached. 



Now, they tell me that this -boll weevil does not eat anything but the 

 inside of the forms of the bolls. I know that they come, out of these 

 forms, because, upon opening one of these forms, one day, quite a number 

 of them flew out and flew away. A great many others played possum, 

 lay there and appeared to be dead. I gathered quite a number, in these 

 forms, of these boll weevils, and brought them home, kept them well 

 corked up, however; none of them got away. It was not many days 

 before one of my Texas neighbors brought over to our house what he 

 called a boll weevil. 1 put it in with the others, and I could not see 

 any difference. So I believe then that we have had the boll weevil for 

 a number of years. 



It was only the other day, after a heavy frost at home, that one of my 

 Texas neighbors brought me a half-grown weevil, and it was dead. Now, 

 they say that the full-grown weevil won't die from exposure to the 

 weather. I don't know about that, but this one was about half grown, 

 and it was certainly dead. 



Something has transpired or developed in this Convention that I think 

 is of the utmost importance to us : that where precautions have been 

 taken, the boll weevil has not carried the terrors, in some of my friends' 

 opinions, that it has had for us. Because we hear it stated here that full 

 crops of cotton have been grown right in the boll weevil district. A 

 friend of mine told me that he had just visited Texas, and he saw a 

 first-class crop of cotton right in the center of the boll weevil district; 

 that this crop of cotton had been raised upon a field where the gentle- 

 man, the year before, had turned his cattle in and had destroyed every 

 vestige of cotton after the first picking, and there in that particular field, 

 a full crop of cotton had been raised this year. 



I do not say this to show that we are not right in what we are doing 

 here to-day, because we know that this boll weevil is possibly the most 

 destructive insect that has ever struck the cotton crop, and we have to 

 do everything in our power to get him out of the State. But I think, be- 

 yond the shadow of a doubt, he will be kept out, and the terror of him 

 will disappear just as the terror of the caterpillar has disappeared. (Ap- 

 plause. "> 



